A Latino Reading of Race, Kinship, and the Empire: John’s Prologue [1st ed. 2023] 3031203046, 9783031203046

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A Latino Reading of Race, Kinship, and the Empire John’s Prologue Rodolfo Galvan Estrada III

A Latino Reading of Race, Kinship, and the Empire “The more we study John’s prologue from different cultural perspectives, the more wealth of interpretations we learn from these readings. Rodolfo Estrada’s A Latino Reading of Race, Kinship, and the Empire: John’s Prologue surely completes this task. Estrada brings to bear a Latino perspective on the prologue. The volume provides an excellent example of the cultural turn in biblical studies with attention to an analysis of readings of the prologue, and with a sustained and critical analysis of the prologue in tandem with the Latinx culture and its reception in the Latin American colonial world. The result is an innovative work, with conclusions that will challenge the field of Johannine studies.” —Francisco Lozada, Jr., Charles Fischer Catholic Professor of New Testament, Latinx Studies Director: Latino/a/x Studies and Borderlands Institute, Brite Divinity School, USA “A complex cross section between critical theory, historical engagement, biblical studies, and cultural analysis, this book weaves together Johannine biblical concerns and Chicana/o and Latina/o questions of Identity as deeply shaped by experiences of colonization. Rodolfo Estrada helps us re-imagine spaces of identity and belonging in God through a deep reinterpretation of the gospel of John.” —Néstor Medina, Assistant Professor of Religious Ethics and Culture, Director of Master of Theological Studies, Emmanuel College of Victoria University in the University of Toronto, Canada “In this terrific book, Rodolfo Estrada reminds us that racial representation matters. Carefully and thoughtfully situated within his contexts as a scholar and a Chicano, Estrada challenges our assumptions about the racial imaginaries at work in the Gospel of John. This book is an important intervention in the study of rhetoric of kinship and belonging in both Latinx thought and biblical studies.” —Jacqueline M. Hidalgo, Professor of Latina/o/x Studies and Religion, Director of the Oakley Center for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Williams College, USA

Rodolfo Galvan Estrada III

A Latino Reading of Race, Kinship, and the Empire John’s Prologue

Rodolfo Galvan Estrada III Vanguard University Costa Mesa, CA, USA

ISBN 978-3-031-20304-6    ISBN 978-3-031-20305-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20305-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © “Hisham Ibrahim/Getty Images” This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

This book is dedicated to the important Latina women in my life beginning with my grandmother Aurora Galvan. She taught me the language, faith, and tradition of our Latino culture. I wish you were with us to see the legacy you left in me. Te extraño mucho y pienso en ti todo el tiempo. I also dedicate this book to my mother, Veronica Estrada, who gave me love and hope throughout my life. My sister, Rachel Estrada, who has become such a wonderful mom. And Jessica Estrada, my love and beautiful wife, who has been my best friend for over twenty years. Thank you, Jessica, for being a wonderful woman, foster mom, and hard-working wife. I love living life with you! Love you forever.

Contents

1 Revisiting the Racial Problem in the Johannine Prologue  1 2 Reading the Ancient World with Chicano Eyes 31 3 Race and Representation 59 4 The Prologue’s Racialized Reality: John 1:1–18 83 5 The  Prologue and Kinship: A Latino Reading of the Johannine Family111 6 The Prologue and Race: La Raza Cósmica143 7 The  Prologue and Roman Conquest: Bartolomé de Las Casas and Roman Representation187 8 Reflexiones y Conclusión229 References237 Index253

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CHAPTER 1

Revisiting the Racial Problem in the Johannine Prologue

The prologue of the Fourth Gospel includes a story of racial difference, rejection, and the emergence of a new ethnicized community. Racial identities are also deconstructed, questioned, and represented. This literary rhetoric, believe it or not, shapes the reader’s imagination. Readers may lose sight of this aspect if they solely limit themselves to its Christological robust statements. We cannot, as Raymond Brown does, read the gospel with the assumption that the hearers’ ethnic background is of “little importance” or assume that due to the gospel’s universalism that all ethnic categories had lost significance.1 This perspective is striking, given that Brown elsewhere recognizes the diversity of the Johannine community. He, however, prefers to describe them as “Christians,” a term he considers “neutral.”2 But what is really going on here in the prologue? Should we really dismiss the racial identity of the early Christians in preference of a more neutral term, as Brown does? Would this not silence the racial diversity of the Johannine community and rob them of their identity, culture, and group belonging, which contributes to how they view and interpret life? Perhaps this is what the prologue seems to be doing. Yet, one’s racial identity is never neutral, as if it had no bearing upon how one would be perceived or represented. Failing to recognize how racial rhetoric in the Greco-Roman world was utilized to dehumanize and categorize the “other” continues the misguided assumption that the early Christians were not concerned about race or engaged in racial rhetoric. Indeed, Denise Buell reminds us of the dangers that come with © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Galvan Estrada III, A Latino Reading of Race, Kinship, and the Empire, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20305-3_1

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characterizing Christianity as a universalizing movement. We cannot continue to frame Christianity as a non-racial movement as if it were not concerned about people groups and differences.3 Not thinking about race is indeed a privilege. Having to live one’s life without the fear of being profiled or stereotyped by police authorities is a luxury that many minoritized communities do not have. We should not presume that race was irrelevant for the ancients. They understood racial differences, and many minoritized communities today also understand this very well. And what we will come to realize at the end of our study is how the prologue contributes to this conversation about race for its readers. How the prologue of John portrays otherness, difference, and race relations is the focus of this study. Certainly, the prologue vividly rouses our imagination about the identity of the Logos as God. These passages echo the creation narrative in Genesis and the role of wisdom in Jewish literature.4 Poetically, they explore Jesus’s pre-existence as the divine Logos, his participation in creation, and relationship with God the Father.5 There is a profound awareness that the divine Logos of ancient times has come as human flesh to reveal the Father (John 1:14–18). There is a movement from heaven to an earthly realm, one that Fernando Segovia describes as a journey.6 But embedded in these theological claims is something more. The prologue has the potential to stir and shape our racial imagination. A cursory overview of the prologue that will be repeated throughout this study will identify statements about racial relations that should be startling to hearers of the gospel aware of these dynamics in the Greco-­ Roman world. The language of the prologue describes racial resistance, representation, and rejection at various stages of the Logos’s arrival into the world. The Logos, as the light, encounters hostility from the darkness (v. 5), becomes unknown by the very world he created (v. 10), and is eventually rejected by his own people (v. 11). The language used to describe this rejection include the phrases, “they did not overcome/grasp” (κατέλαβεν), “they did not know” (ἔγνω), and “they did not receive” (παρέλαβον), which all point to an encounter with people—but what people and when? Who is the prologue referring to? Is the failure of the darkness a reference to the Jews or the Roman Empire’s inability to fully extinguish Jesus’s life on the cross? The prologue further mentions Moses as someone who gave (ἐδόθη) the law, which contrasts Jesus’s ability to give (ἔδωκεν) the children of God legal status and provide grace and truth. Jesus is contrasted with Moses (vv. 17–18), a move that would alert any

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person minimally acquainted with Judaism that a comparison is being made with this ancestral Jewish figure. This does not presume that the mission and migration of the Logos was a failure. Some received the Logos (v. 12), beheld the Logos’s glory (v. 14), and are granted a new identity as “children of God” (v. 13). But if the mission and journey was not hopeless, why would the prologue bother to construct Jesus’s identity and experiences as a divine Logos who had racial resistance and rejection while—at the same time—subverting genealogical relations and establishing a new kinship called the “children of God?” Why the comparison between Jesus and Moses, an esteemed figure also known by non-Jews to be the founder of the Jewish nation? Comparing and contrasting ethnic figures and communities is not simply a neutral endeavor. As we will later explore, racial representation was also motivated in part to bolster one’s racial identity, redraw family boundaries, and had an impact on how one was treated by imperial authorities. This leads one to ask, what are the racial implications of these representations for people in the Greco-Roman world? Is the prologue racially constructing Jesus through these representations? Is it rhetorically comparing him to others to distinguish and define his identity? I believe it does. This racial rhetoric is evident not only between the Logos and his experience with his own kin but also between the newly racialized children of God who receive the Logos. As this study will demonstrate, this mode of comparison is not new. It is racial rhetoric that has occurred since the invention of the barbarian. It continues to this day whenever we describe foreigners and immigrants with representations that do not reflect reality and sharply contrast with our own racial identity. This study will explore how the prologue utilizes racial rhetoric and representation in order to shape the reader’s imagination throughout the gospel. The prologue provides a lens to read the entire gospel with a keen awareness of Jesus’s engagement with people groups—from his own family to the Roman authorities. It shades the story of the gospel with rhetoric that colors the racial imagination of the audience. By doing so, Jesus’s identity becomes constructed and defined through racial representations. In this sense, the prologue introduces a racialized Christology—one that develops through racial encounters and representations. But where does this study fit in light of scholarship on the prologue? In this following section, we will explore the work of several scholars in order to point out how racial rhetoric is rarely discussed in the prologue. Although my review of

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these scholars is not exhaustive, these authors exemplify the various approaches that identify the impact the prologue has on interpreting the gospel.

The Prologue Among Contemporary Interpreters Elizabeth Harris: Prologue and Gospel Elizabeth Harris’s historical-critical study affirms that the prologue prepares the reader’s understanding of the gospel.7 She notices that this also raises the question regarding the intended readers and concludes that this points to a wider “multi-racial audience of a more universal character.”8 Indeed, the first figure she discusses is John the Baptist (1:6–8, 15, 19–36; 3:23–36) whose witness “extends beyond Judaism to embrace all humankind.”9 This universal witness, as Harris mentions, is needed given that the prologue creates a universal alienation in 1:18 with the claim that no one can see nor comprehend God apart from Jesus.10 While Harris supposes that the mention of Moses does not mean that the gospel is “anti-Jewish” or has an “anti-law polemic,” she elsewhere suggests that Jesus “must be seen to disengage himself from Jewish tenants and practice, while at the same time establishing belief in the one God of Judaism.”11 Harris explains that Moses was portrayed negatively and positively in Greco-Roman literature. But, as she states, “since we do not know for certain in advance who the evangelist is, nor what his audience is” then no affirmative interpretation could be made on 1:17 alone.12 Harris does notice the ethnic implications of this passage.13 That is, Moses is presented in an antithetical relationship with Jesus, which reflects a tension between the “first Christians” and the synagogue.14 Despite affirming that the audience was multi-racial, it seems striking that Harris calls them “first Christians.” The prologue utilizes ethnic rhetoric, but Harris does not explore its implications for multi-racial readers nor whether the description of “Christians” had an ethnoracial significance as we find later in the second century.15 We are left with several critical concerns. First, it must be pointed out that Harris presupposes a universal readership who would have been familiar with prologues in Greek drama.16 But if the readers were “multi-racial” as she describes, why not specifically explore how Jesus engaged and interacted with people groups? Would not a multi-racial readership be interested in how Jesus is presented as one who interacts with his kin and the ethnically other, especially the Samaritans, Greeks, and Romans? This

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minor critique is not to suggest that these aspects are completely overlooked in Harris’s analysis. She notices the universal implications of John the Baptist’s statements, the cosmic culpability of all people, alienation of the Logos from Judaism, and the universal mission of the Logos.17 But her interpretation of 1:11–12 where the Logos is described as “coming to his own” is considered to be a general description of humankind.18 Although she rightly highlights the conflict and contrast with Moses, this is not a neutral characterization. There is an ethnic othering that shapes how the reader understands the ethnic groups who later appear in the gospel. Craig Evans: Word and Glory Craig Evans’s study is best understood in light of the claims of those who viewed Gnostic literature as the background of the prologue.19 Evans argues that the prologue’s Christology is thoroughly Jewish and that utilizing non-Jewish sources is simply unjustified.20 The implications of Jewish origins of the prologue suggest that the most likely provenance of the gospel and setting of the Johannine community is the synagogue of the diaspora.21 Evans believes that the writer had a Palestinian origin given the accurate knowledge of Jerusalem and its environs. He finds that the themes and expressions of the gospel reflect a complex apologetic response to issues with the synagogue.22 One aspect, however, deserves critique. Evans suggests that every aspect of the prologue is paralleled in Jewish literature—but in what way? There are a host of texts Evans presents that reveal striking parallels. Upon closer inspection, certain texts do not squarely match with the conflict and ethnic rhetoric found within the Johannine prologue. In fact, it is entirely missed. For example, when comparing Sirach with the Johannine prologue, some oversimplifications become apparent. In Sirach 24:12, the writer states, “I took root among the people” (καὶ ἐρρίζωσα ἐν λαῷ). This text is compared to John 1:11, which conveys a different outcome. In John 1:11, the Logos “comes to his own [people] but is not received” (εἰς τὰ ἴδια ἦλθεν, καὶ οἱ ἴδιοι αὐτὸν οὐ παρέλαβον). Not only the language but also the outcomes are different. This may seem like a minor critique, but it again occurs with other texts. Sirach 24:28 states that the “first humans did not know [wisdom] completely” (οὐ συνετέλεσεν ὁ πρῶτος γνῶναι αὐτήν). The context does not suppose that wisdom was unknowable. Instead, wisdom was not fully known (συντελέω) by the first humans, as the following verse indicates (Sirach 24:29). This starkly differs from the

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experience of the Logos in John 1:10, which states that the Logos was in the world, created the world, but was not known by the world (ὁ κόσμος αὐτὸν οὐκ ἔγνω). There is no hint of partial knowing in the Johannine prologue. Evans provides possible background texts that illuminate the prologue, but these texts have contexts that are strikingly different.23 What justifies an alleged parallel between texts? Is it simply the existence of a term even though the ideas and contexts are different?24 Furthermore, once possible sources are identified, what then? For too long, American-European scholars throughout the decades have been obsessed finding the “sources” behind the Gospels. As Ekaputra Tupamahu suggests, this quest reflects a nineteenth-century concern with intellectual property rights.25 It may seem that I am quibbling over small details and may miss the larger relationship between John and Jewish literature. But if ethnic tension, comparison, or rejection is missed or overlooked in the prologue, then it is more likely that these aspects would be downplayed in the gospel. Alison Jasper: The Shining Garment of the Text Alison Jasper provides a feminist reading of the prologue.26 She focuses on how patriarchal and phallogocentric presumptions distort our reading of the prologue by defining humanity with the normative status of a male, and thus by implication, the inferiority of the female.27 Jasper examines five readings of the prologue from the fifth to the twentieth century, which include Augustine, Hildegard of Bingen, Martin Luther, Rudolf Bultmann, and Adrienne von Speyr. Her goal, however, is to read the text not only as a woman but also as a way of challenging the use of feminine or female imagery and symbols as they are present or absent in the text.28 Jasper identifies how some writers include a pejorative significance of σὰρξ, given its relationship with the bodily and material site of sexual desire. As Jasper insists, however, God is dependent upon the femininity of the materiality to sustain a relationship with humanity.29 This suggests that the prologue includes a resistance to the cultural and patriarchal barriers formed against women as noted in John 1:12–13. Jasper’s analysis points out that we are in danger of supporting the “marginalization and demonization of women” by devaluing the femininity of σὰρξ.30 The flesh, according to Jasper, does not refer to a lower order within the divine and human hierarchy. Instead, the Logos embraces the feminine flesh-humanity.31

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Jasper’s reading most certainly destabilizes our phallogocentric context and readings that are ubiquitous in commentaries. Jasper pushes the reader to move beyond the dualistic and transcendent “spiritual” divine sphere of the Logos and the “earthly” material sphere. She compels us to rethink the significance of the flesh of the incarnation. But Jasper also fails to address ethnic and cultural issues that womanist scholars have raised about feminist readings.32 That is, with the focus on gender, there is a tendency to ignore the ethnic and cultural intersections of a gendered body. Certainly, the incarnation of the flesh would not be possible without the female body, but Mary is not a woman devoid of an ethnic identity. Mary is an ethnically Jewish woman. We cannot presume that all female experiences (especially those of women of minoritized communities) under the empire and patriarchal contexts are similar. Since the text provides a gendered understanding of the incarnation of the Logos as “flesh,” in what way can we also include the ethnoracial experiences of the Logos? Human beings are not only gendered bodies but have racial identities and contexts that include different experiences and levels of oppression. These are dynamics in the prologue we cannot overlook. Daniel Boyarin: Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity Finally, Daniel Boyarin proposes that Judaism and Christianity were phenomenologically indistinguishable entities in their earliest stages.33 He finds that the prologue of the Fourth Gospel is best understood as an early Jewish midrash on Genesis 1 and Proverbs 8.34 Only later did Jewish Christians expand and interpret the midrash to include John the Baptist in vv. 6–8 and v. 15. As such, Boyarin reads the prologue as containing three logophanies that describe three failed attempts of the Logos’s entrance into the world. The first logophany includes the Logos appearing to Abraham, the second is the giving of the Torah, and the final is the incarnation of the Logos as flesh. This reading, as Boyarin proposes, brings coherence to the prologue and avoids inchoate intimations of the incarnation before verse 14.35 When read in this way, Jesus therefore is a “supplement to the Torah,” as Boyarin argues.36 What are the implications of this proposal? This suggests that Logos theology did not originate from Hellenistic philosophy but is a deeply Jewish theological concept. The prologue was adapted and “Christianized” from a Jewish interpretation of the Logos for Jewish Christians. This also

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proposes that the prologue represents a division between Johannine Jewish Christians and Jews who did not believe in Jesus. In this sense, the prologue is not anti-Jewish but emerges from an intra-Jewish debate regarding the “Two Powers of Heaven” where the memra (word) of God was considered to be a second and divine agent of both creation and revelation. Boyarin points out that later rabbis viewed the “Two Powers in Heaven” as heresy. As a result, they constructed Christianity in attempting to root out heresy from Judaism. Likewise, Christians such as Justin Martyr also constructed Judaism through heresiology. He states, “Christianity and Judaism each produced their respective others by disavowing parts of themselves.”37 Boyarin argues that Jewish Christians redeveloped the prologue in order to differentiate and distinguish themselves from non-believing Jews. But he also admits that in some areas such as Asia Minor, where John is traditionally located, “Gentile converts began to outnumber Christian Jews at a fairly early date, and that they brought with them, almost inevitably, ‘hellenophile’ and then ‘antijudaistic’ tendencies.”38 Boyarin convincingly argues that the Logos’s theology of the prologue emerges from Jewish theology, but who is to say that it would have been controlled or utilized solely by and for Jewish Christians? This is my concern with Boyarin’s reading. It focuses much on identifying the origins of the prologue that it raises more questions about the racial relationship between non-believing Jews, Jesus believing Jews, and Gentiles. It is also important to recognize that the invention of Christianity (or Judaism) is not solely an “idea,” as if disembodied from people groups. Heresiology is not a neutral affair. It is utilized not solely to reject ideas but also to exclude people. It has implications on how we judge the people who uphold these views. Ideas are never neatly separated from the people groups who champion them. Other Studies on the Prologue Other discussions on the prologue highlight its role in introducing the gospel and its theology. Most recently, Stan Harstine explores two hundred years of research on the prologue and notices the common concern with its authenticity, hymnic origin, unity with the rest of the gospel, and its implications for reading the gospel. He notices that “no consensus has yet been reached concerning the unity of the prologue” and proposes a “helical” reading that traces how key terms emerge throughout the

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gospel.39 Out of all the threads he uncovers, however, he does not include themes of ethnic conflict, difference, or the construction of the other. In addition, Günter Kruck’s Der Johannesprolog includes the research from various scholars who gathered in 2007 at the Haus am Dom in Frankfurt. The monograph studies the Johannine prologue with attention to its importance for the Fourth Gospel, its theological meaning, canonical implications, sources in Jewish literature, and history of interpretation. Kruck’s essay certainly follows this stated objective. He explores the theological implications of the prologue from the writings of Pope Gregory, Rudolf Bultmann, Martin Luther, and Karl Rahner.40 Kruck thus concludes that the prologue as a confession can be read as a “performative statement.” It is the expression of an experience in which direct access to God is connected with and through Jesus.41 Certainly, the prologue includes robust theological statements that have been foundational to Christian theology. But what about the way that the prologue also racially reveals Jesus’s identity through representations, comparisons, and hostile engagement with people, especially when he dies at the hands of the Roman authorities? John Painter believes that the prologue emerged in conflict with the synagogue and originated in an early form by “Hellenist” Christians familiar with the Pauline communities.42 He suggests that the evangelist refashioned the prologue from an earlier Hellenist version, emphasized the theme of revelation in antithesis to the Law, and introduced the incarnation, Jesus’s uniqueness, and the work of John the witness.43 In a bitter struggle with the synagogue and docetic opponents, Painter finds the prologue a reflection of conflict between the sectarian Johannine community with the synagogue and other Christians who did not have a correct Christology.44 But, like many others, the conflict is still theological. Painter does not address the implications that the prologue’s racial rhetoric has in characterizing people groups and shaping the hearers’ racial imagination. There is one scholar who would caution such an approach that I advocate—William Loader. He does not find the prologue (or the Christological statement in John 20:31) sufficient to cover the various Christological images in the gospel. Instead, he posits that we should find “patterns or structures of thought which show the ways the various elements interrelate.”45 This does not mean that he denies the prologue’s importance. In his estimation, the prologue is insufficient, given that it does not mention Jesus’s death or related events.46 He finds that the prologue’s “centre of attention” portrays Jesus as a revealer and has revelation as the

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predominant focus.47 And as we have noticed, many others like Loader primarily focus on Jesus’s identity as revealer and minimally engage the implications of its racial rhetoric.48 Missing is a reading of the prologue that takes seriously its racial rhetoric, claims that include the rejection of ancestral relations in an understanding of family, deprioritizing racial identity, and highlighting conflict with political darkness. Loader hints at some of these aspects49 and even recognizes the family imagery that explains Jesus’s relationship to the Father.50 But where Loader and others view verse 18 as the culmination of the prologue, I seek to consider how racial representations are embedded in the prologue. My goal is not to present a unifying interpretation of the prologue. Instead, I want to highlight some of the missing racial rhetoric that has been neglected in our study of these important opening verses.

Guiding Questions and Focus Although the earlier approaches have suited the needs and interests of the various Euro-American scholars, my questions are different. They are so because of the Latino lens that I bring to the text. I have experienced firsthand how representations shape perceptions, suspicions, and fears of ethnic people. I know that standing idle in a convenience store draws much suspicion, not because of who I am, but due to how my identity as a Latino male has been portrayed in the media. Representations impact our racial imaginations, and we need to take seriously how racial groups are characterized, portrayed, and described in the biblical text. How we view Jesus’s relationship with ethnic people profoundly affects our racial imagination and view of the “other.” Furthermore, we cannot assume that race issues were not a concern for the ancients or early Christians.51 In fact, it is Hippocrates’s environmental theories about people from other nations that led to the Greek attitude of intellectual and strength superiority over foreigners. Hippocrates states, “All things that grow in the earth assimilate themselves to the earth.”52 He reasoned that soft terrain produces weak people, and those who reside in harsh climates are more courageous and intelligent.53 His environmental views influenced both Plato’s and Aristotle’s perceptions of foreigners. They advanced the assumption that Athens was divinely situated in a perfect region that gave birth to people with superior wisdom.54 This view of foreigners is also later retrieved and echoed by the Roman writer Vitruvius who claims that “the races of Italy are the most perfectly constituted in

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both respects—in bodily form and in mental activity.”55 The Greeks and Romans presumed that the location of their birth gave one an ethnic advantage over foreigners. These perspectives formed the ideological bases for both the Greek and Roman Empires to promote the illusions that their intelligence and strength were superior to all other foreigners. They viewed, judged, constructed, and predetermined the character of people groups based upon the environment they inhabited. These perspectives provided the bedrock to racial views and antagonism against immigrants and foreigners—views that still emerge today—people who do not look like “us” or are not born in the same place as “us.” Environmental determinism was not the only way of thinking about foreigners, their land, and why different people groups existed. This study recognizes that ethnic hostility and xenophobia existed in the ancient world. We cannot attempt to downplay or neglect the role of racial rhetoric in the construction and portrayal of the other, despite Eric Gruen assessment, who, for example, interprets various racially insensitive statements as “tongue in cheek” and “sardonic” language.56 Gruen often presents a rosy picture of the ancient world and downplays the role of ethnic othering. Even though some may question how much ethnic hostility and prejudice was present, it cannot be overlooked or dismissed.57 Failing to notice the ethnic ideologies and characterizations of the other truncates the meaning we generate from the text. In fact, meaning is enhanced when we recognize how the descriptions of people groups is embedded in portrayals, perspectives, and ideologies of the text. Representations of the “other” are never neutral. They reveal the racial world and imagination constructed by the writer. Unquestionably, to study race and ethnicity is not to assume that other historical or literary aspects are ignored. This study is rooted with a concern for the ethnic and racial scripts of the Greco-Roman world. My approach is similar to what Andrew Benko describes as an “ethnos-­ conscious” approach. That is, we seek to study race and ethnicity in terms of how they understood these terms.58 This lens also fills in the gap of social-scientific scholars who also attempt to explore how people viewed and understood other people groups.59 I do not presume that this study of the ancients is void of my social location. I recognize that my context holds sway, influence, and shapes the questions and readings that I bring to the text. Sadly, and perhaps unwisely, too many biblical scholars presume that they can “objectively” interpret the biblical text and find its real meaning through close readings. This is, as Lynne St. Clair Darden

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describes, “camouflaged subjectivity.”60 Thus, the additional element that will be incorporated in this hermeneutical matrix will be a Latino perspective. I will dialogically engage the text, its ethnic context, and racial claims with a critical awareness of my own context. By drawing from the rich theological tradition and Latino/a/x scholars on Johannine literature, I will interpret the world of the biblical text with and through these voices.

Defining Race and Ethnicity Before I continue, one probably has noticed that I have used “race” and “ethnicity” interchangeably. One of the consistent critiques I encounter when discussing race and ethnicity in the Bible is the assumption that this is only a modern concept. Today, there is a presumption that these concepts are tied to biological or physical traits such as skin color. For example, one may appeal to the physical appearance of one’s skin or hair to categorize a person with a group of people who have similar phenotypes. Or one may listen to a person’s accent and make judgments about his or her ethnic heritage or country of origin. This happens to me a lot, especially since I do not sound “Mexican” or whatever a “Mexican” is supposed to sound like. Understanding race and ethnicity in this manner are contemporary ways of classifying and categorizing people according to cultural traits or observable phenotypes. Thinking about race and ethnicity does not exist apart from social and historical development. For this reason, it is important to understand what we mean by this language today so that we do not confuse it with its ancient use, although they do hold similar meanings. Historically, Ivan Hannaford notices that the idea of “race” emerged during the Enlightenment in order to explain human differences based on genetic, evolutionary, and scientific theories. Differences among people groups were believed to be observable, innate, and unchangeable. Therefore, phenotypes such as skin color, type of hair, and the size and shape of skull were used in order to differentiate diverse “species” of human beings.61 When it comes to defining “ethnicity,” it was the Norwegian social anthropologist Fredrik Barth whose views helped shape its modern definition. He believed that “ethnic groups are categories of ascription and identification by the actors themselves” and have the “characteristic of organizing interaction between people.”62 In other words, ethnicity refers to people groups and the way that they define themselves. These groups

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are biologically self-perpetuating, share basic cultural values, have a bounded social field of communication and interaction, and have members who identify and are identified to that group.63 For Barth, ethnic groups are a form of social organization based upon categories that distinguish groups from each other.64 Specifically, it is the ethnic boundaries that define the group and determine insiders and outsiders. These boundaries are fluid and change throughout time, but the maintenance of these boundaries is what distinguishes and maintains ethnic group solidarity. This also means that to define the other as a non-member implies that the other has a “limitation on shared understanding, difference in judging value and performance, and a restriction of interaction to sectors of assumed common understanding and mutual interest.”65 The “other” is the “other” because he or she does not share common identity markers that define the group. This would include aspects such as culture, values, or shared history. Ethnicity in this sociological sense refers to group solidarity that is based on certain criteria. It is a way of classifying and distinguishing people groups from each other. Although ethnicity and race can be viewed as synonymous and share overlapping meanings, not all agree. Furthermore, it is not a coincidence that after the 1950 and 1967 UNESCO statements on race that the term “ethnicity” started to emerge with popularity.66 Some like Andreas Wimmer argue for a broader view of the term “ethnicity” while viewing “race” as a subset of ethnicity. This, as he notices, is contrary to the popular use of the term “race” in the U.S.67 David James and Matthew Oware propose that the term “race” refers to observable phenotypical differences among groups. They define “ethnicity” in terms of a “shared kinship, belief in a shared history, and shared symbolic representations of their peoplehood.”68 Certainly, racial groups make similar claims but, as James and Oware suggest, the process in the development of racial groups is different. There were historical, legal, and social forces that assigned individuals to racial categories in the U.S.69 In addition, Critical Race Theorists remind us that race is a category that society invents in order to distinguish and define groups of people from one another based on cultural, physical, and linguistic differences.70 Furthermore, post-colonial scholars also point out the interconnectedness of these concepts with colonialism.71 That is, race and ethnicity are the products of colonization when the “other” was categorized and defined in light of European standards. All of this is to say the following: there are difficulties in defining and distinguishing these terms across disciplines and history.72 Even more, we

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must recognize that these terms are socially constructed which means that we cannot become preoccupied with essentialist definitions. Ethnicity and race terminology in our contemporary period refer to a variety of factors that define group belonging and boundaries. These words share common definitions that distinguish people groups according to phenotypes, culture, language, history, and place of origin. Furthermore, it is important to remember that there are no various “races” or “species” of human beings. All human beings are part of the same human race. Failing to recognize this point has led to erroneous explanations of human differences in order to justify mistreatment, slavery, and dehumanization of foreigners. Although the boundaries of ethnic groups are maintained throughout history, they are also fluid and evolve. A rhetoric of belonging and boundaries emerges in response to the perceived and constructed differences found in others. Additionally, by classifying the “other,” we cannot ignore that this is also a value judgment. Differences and distinctions between groups are not always neutral, value-­ free statements, or equal boundary making activities. The other is different, and therefore inferior or superior, substandard, and thus less than the privileged “people group.” How we represent the other has the potential to justify mistreatment and exert violence on the other for simply being “other.” So, what about the ancients? Did they define ethnicity and race in this manner? Although they did not associate race (γένος) and ethnicity (ἔθνος) simply with skin color, the terms were used to describe themselves, distinguish people groups, descendants, or humanity in general. The term “ethnicity” originates from the Greek word ἔθνος, often translated within the New Testament as “Gentile” but also utilized to describe the Jews.73 The term γένος is also translated as “race,” “kind,” “offspring,” and is even found to describe demons, language, and fish.74 The ancients used these terms synonymously in order to differentiate, describe themselves, or classify people groups.75 The uses of these terms are very similar to how we use them today, but there are also some nuances with the ideas associated with race (γένος) and ethnicity (ἔθνος) in the ancient world. Primarily, various perspectives exist on what it means to be a member of an ethnic or racial group. The ancients held onto environmental, genetic, genealogical, autochthony, and cultural theories of race and ethnicity. For example, Isocrates provides a cultural understanding of race and its relationship to the Greek intellectual heritage:

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And so far has our city distanced the rest of mankind in thought and in speech that her pupils have become the teachers of the rest of the world; and she has brought it about that the name Hellenes suggests no longer a race but an intelligence (γένους ἀλλὰ τῆς διανοίας δοκεῖν εἶναι), and that the title Hellenes is applied rather to those who share our culture than to those who share a common blood. (Paneg. 50)

This suggests that being educated and adopting Greek culture are akin to changing one’s race. Greekness was not solely gained at birth but also through intellectual and cultural belonging. Differences among people groups were also tied to language. When Herodotus discussing the Dorians, Athenians, and Macedonians, he reviews another indigenous group called the Pelasgians. He does not know for certain the origin of their language but suggests that if “the Attic people were once Pelasgian, then it seems clear that they changed their language at the same time as they became Hellenes” (Hist. 1.57.3). To change or lose one’s language in this sense is to change or lose one’s racial identity. This is very similar to how Mexican Americans are viewed and judged as inferior by native Spanish speakers for not maintaining the Spanish language. Since Mexican Americans lost their native tongue, they are often considered pochos or agringados. This suggests that they have become less than Mexican—or “White” and “Americanized” and thus a subgroup within the broader Mexican identity. Losing one’s racial identity with the loss of language can also occur when one’s ancestral customs and laws are unlearned through the comingling with foreigners. Dionysius of Halicarnassus’s description of the Achaeans, as he describes, were from the best Greek people have become the most savage of all barbarians because they associate with foreigners. He writes: For many others by living among barbarians have in a short time forgotten all their Greek heritage, so that they neither speak the Greek language nor observe the customs of the Greeks nor acknowledge the same gods nor have the same equitable laws (by which most of all the spirit of the Greeks differs from that of the barbarians) nor agree with them in anything else whatever that relates to the ordinary intercourse of life. (Rom. ant. 1.89)

Here we notice that the Greek racial identity is fluid. It can be lost simply by living with foreigners and becoming like foreigners. What defines

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“Greekness” in this sense includes a similar heritage, language, customs, religion, and laws. Lose these and one loses the “Greek” identity. But if one preserves and maintains these boundaries, and thus avoids foreigners, one would not have to worry about losing their racial identity. Scholars indeed recognize the diversity of views associated with the terms “race” and “ethnicity.” Benjamin Isaac defines ethnic groups as those who share a long history, beliefs, characteristics, cultural traditions, customs, and manners.76 Jonathan Hall considers ethnicity as people groups who hold to a myth of a shared descent and territory.77 Denise Buell asserts that race and ethnicity were strategies of self-definition and classification that demarcate group membership.78 Andrew Benko identifies the fixed and fluid nature of race in the ancient world. In order of importance, he conceptualizes race as primarily a matter of common ancestry or descent, secondarily with a specific (home)land, and third, a common culture or way of life.79 It is, however, Love Sechrest’s detailed analysis and comparison of the terms ἔθνος and γένος in Jewish and GrecoRoman literature that reveals a clearer understanding of these terms, how they were used, and the ideas associated with them. Sechrest notices that ἔθνος and γένος are similar to our modern usage and appear synonymously, but they also have their nuances.80 Specifically, ἔθνος is utilized to describe people groups, emerges in discussion of war or conflict, land or territory, government, religion, and is found in less frequency with customs, lifestyles, and group names.81 In an examination of γένος, similar results appear. It refers to people groups, language, kinship, humanity, territory, customs, government, war, and a founding figure.82 As a result, Sechrest finds that land and territory are important elements for ἔθνος, given that people groups are distinguished by their native country of origin.83 Likewise, “kinship and the group’s characteristic” was an extremely important category for defining γένος in the ancient world. In fact, Sechrest notices that γένος as kinship is much more important for non-Jewish writers than Jewish.84 Sechrest thus proposes that it is better to associate ethnicity with conflict or territory and race with kinship.85 When Sechrest compares non-Jewish perspectives with Jewish perspectives, other aspects appear. Non-Jewish writers tended to associate ethnicity and race with territory and kinship.86 On the other hand, Jewish writers, except for Josephus, associated ethnicity and race with religion.87 This is not to suggest that other factors (kinship, customs, conflict, or territory) did not matter for a Jewish understanding of race and ethnicity. But religion was an important factor for a Jewish ethnic and racial identity. As

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such, Sechrest finds that from a Jewish perspective, conversion would amount to a change in race or ethnicity.88 Sechrest helps us recognize the various implications of the terms “race” and “ethnicity” in the Greco-­ Roman period. We can notice the various aspects tied to these terms. What, then, have we found? If anything, the terms are similar to our contemporary understanding. The major difference, however, is that people in antiquity did not always define race or ethnicity with skin color or DNA. For the ancients, the terms ethnicity and race defined group differences (boundaries) and group solidarity (belonging). What was it that identified the boundaries or belonging between people groups? These factors included the environment, such as territory, lineage or genealogical claims, kinship relations, culture practices or laws, language, or religion. The term “race” and “ethnicity” certainly vary according to the ancient writer, but most used these terms in reference to one of the factors. When I use these terms, I am really talking about people group boundaries and belonging. Most importantly, though, the appeals to certain distinguishing factors, such as environment or culture, are ways of demonstrating one’s racial and ethnic belonging or justifying boundaries between racial and ethnic groups. This is what I mean by “racial rhetoric.” That is, when different people groups are discussed, these differences are explained with language of ethnoracial belonging or ethnoracial boundaries. And likewise, when group boundaries and notions of group belonging are mentioned, even though a racial group is not explicitly mentioned—this too is racial rhetoric. We must also notice one more aspect, the fluidity of ethnic and racial identity. Ethnic and racial groups are observable (or heard, as in the case with language), distinguishable, and fluid. Members are not fixed or tied to an ethnic or racial identity—you can become Greek or lose your Greekness. In other words, there is both an element of objectivity and subjectivity when it comes to understanding the ideas associated with these terms. One is either objectively a member of a territory or not. But at the same time, there is also subjectivity because the boundaries and membership criteria are fluid, as in the case when genealogies are fabricated. Our study will attempt to be mindful of these implications and the potential misunderstanding they may have for contemporary readers. Furthermore, while both “ethnicity” and “race” have overlapping meanings, they will be used synonymously, although they do have their nuances depending upon the context and rhetorical purpose for the writer.

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Other Relevant Aspects in John One more relevant aspect of race in John deals with the Johannine community. To explore the racial implications of the Fourth Gospel is to take seriously the language, context, situation, and identity of the Johannine community. Primarily, I recognize that the hearers of the Fourth Gospel lived in a multi-racial and urban context of Ephesus in the late first century.89 One cannot easily discredit this claim on the basis of “insufficient evidence” while at the same time ignoring the evidence we have in patristic literature.90 I agree that the language and background of the gospel draws upon Jewish images and themes, but we cannot assume that only Jewish Christians were the sole readers (or hearers) of the gospel. The earliest commentary on John was indeed written outside of traditional “orthodoxy,” which demonstrates its attractiveness to non-Jews.91 Who, then, were the hearers of the gospel? It was J. Louis Martyn’s thesis that defined the Johannine community as expelled Jewish Christians who had had a hostile experience with the synagogue.92 Raymond Edward Brown builds from this premise to include Samaritans and some Greeks.93 Certainly, the identity of the Johannine community has been vigorously debated in scholarship. Views range from Ray Alan Culpepper, who believes that the audience were Gentiles, to those like Richard Bauckham, who argues that there was no specific audience in mind.94 Many have abandoned Martyn’s thesis that the gospel was written for Jewish Christians who had been excommunicated from synagogue in favor of a broader or universal audience. In fact, Bauckham asserts that the “author deliberately made his work accessible enough to outsiders for it to be read with profit by nonbelievers, Jewish or Gentile, who might be introduced to it by Christian friends.”95 But how can it be profitable? One cannot fail to recognize that the gospel itself has a special interest in detailing various ethnic groups who come into contact with Jesus. The proposition for a universal audience does not mean that questions about ethnoracial engagement are abandoned. They are all the more necessary to discuss given the diverse context and diverse ethnic ideologies of the Greco-Roman world. The implications of the aforementioned discussion are that principally, we must not fail to discuss the racial implications of the gospel if we uphold the proposition that it was written for all people. John’s universal scope does not mean that ethnic identity, kinship, or foreign political figures are insignificant in communicating the story of Jesus. A universal audience

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makes it even more necessary to pay close attention to the representation, portrayal, engagement, and manner in which the Jews, Samaritans, Greeks, and Romans emerge in the gospel and are alluded in the prologue.

Where Do We Go from Here? This study will therefore explore how the prologue shapes the reader’s racial imagination. Chapter 2 begins by describing how a Latinx hermeneutic uncovers, highlights, or enables us to read the text anew in a critical dialogue between the context of the ancient world and the critical perspectives of Latinx and Latino/a writers. We will explore the pioneers and the contributions of Latinx scholars in order to situate the approach taken in this study. Chapter 3 explores how the Greco-Roman writers represented racial groups. It will examine the assumptions, prejudices, or manners in distinguishing the “other.” This will provide the necessary framework to our understanding of representation in the Johannine prologue and gospel narrative. Chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7 will incorporate these lenses to understand more clearly the implications of racial representation. We will begin by analyzing the prologue and how it embeds a racial rhetoric that ought to shape how to interpret Jesus’s identity and encounter with people. Afterward, we will explore the implications of the prologue’s racial rhetoric by examining its influence upon the gospel’s portrayal of kinship, racial groups, and the Roman authorities. Finally, Chap. 8 will conclude by reviewing our analysis of the prologue’s racial rhetoric and the implications it has upon shaping our reading of the gospel. This chapter will urge us to think about the strategy and purpose of using racial rhetoric from a Latino perspective.

Notes 1. Raymond Brown, Introduction to the Gospel of John, ed. Francis Moloney (New York: Doubleday, 2003), 180–181; Brown, The Gospel According to John 1–12, AB 29 (New York: Doubleday, 1966), lxxviii. 2. Brown, “Other Sheep Not of This Fold: The Johannine Perspective on Christian Diversity in the Late First Century Author,” JBL 97.1 (1978): 15. 3. Denise Buell, “Race and Universalism in Early Christianity,” JECS 10.4 (2002): 435.

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4. Prov 8:22; Sir 1:4; 24:9; Wis 9:9. 5. Scholars are divided on whether the prologue is an early Christian hymn or rhythmic prose. Rudolf Bultmann describes the prologue as a “cultic-­ liturgical poetry” in The Gospel of John (Philadelphia: Westminster: 1976), 14; John Painter views it as an edited Jewish hymn in The Quest for the Messiah: The History, Literature and Theology of the Johannine Community (Nashville: Abingdon, 1993), 137–142; Barnabas Lindars hold that the prologue was adapted from an existing hymn (The Gospel of John [London, Oliphants, 1972], 81); also George Beasley-Murray, John (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1999), 4; Matthew Gordley most recently makes a persuasive case that the prologue is a hymn in “The Johannine Prologue and Jewish Didactic Hymn Traditions: A New Case for Reading the Prologue as a Hymn,” JBL 128.4 (2009): 782–786. Other scholars such as Craig Keener are not certain (John [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003], 1:337). See also Marianne Meye Thompson, John (KY: Westminster, 2015), 26; Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John (Michigan: Eerdmans, 1995), 64; C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John (London: SPCK, 1970), 126. 6. Fernando Segovia, “John 1:1–18 As Entrée into Johannine Reality Representation Ramifications,” in Word, Theology, and Community in John (St. Louis: Chalice, 2002), 33–64 [esp. 34]; Segovia, “The Journey(s) of the Word of God: A Reading of the Plot of the Fourth Gospel,” in The Fourth Gospel from a Literary Perspective, ed. R.  Alan Culpepper and Fernando Segovia (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991), 23–54. 7. Elizabeth Harris, Prologue and Gospel: The Theology of the Fourth Evangelist (England: Sheffield, 1994), 16. 8. Harris, Prologue, 23. 9. Harris, Prologue, 60. 10. Harris, Prologue, 60. 11. Harris, Prologue, 65, 81. 12. Harris, Prologue, 74. 13. Harris, Prologue, 77. 14. Harris, Prologue, 81–82, 89. 15. See Denise Buell, Why This New Race: Ethnic Reasoning in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 2, 29–33; Judith Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco–Roman World (New York: Oxford, 2004), 309; Ep. Diog. 1.1; Mart. Poly. 10.1; 12:1–2. 16. Harris, Prologue, 195. 17. Harris, Prologue, 16, 90, 124, 129, 176. 18. Harris, Prologue, 159. 19. Craig Evans, Word and Glory: On the Exegetical and Theological Background of John’s Prologue (New York: T&T Clark, 1993), 1–46. 20. Evans, Word and Glory, 99.

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21. Evans, Word and Glory, 146–150. 22. Evans, Word and Glory, 185. 23. See also Evans’ comparison between Sirach 24:32b with John 1:5; Wisdom 9:10 with John 1:10–11; Proverbs 8:25 with John 1:13; and the comparison of “friends of God” with “children of God” in Wisdom 7:14, 27 with John 1:12 in Word and Glory, 89–90. 24. Samuel Sandmel, “Parallelomania,” JBL 81.1 (1962): 1–13 [esp. 1–2]. He discusses the tendency of scholars who make “exaggerations” about the parallels, sources, and derivations. 25. Ekaputra Tupamahu, “The Stubborn Invisibility of Whiteness in Biblical Scholarship,” Political Theology Network, November 12, 2020, https:// politicaltheology.com/the–stubborn–invisibility–of–whiteness–in– biblical–scholarship/. 26. Alison Jasper, The Shining Garment of the Text: Gendered Reading of John’s Prologue (Sheffield, UK: 1998), 9. 27. Jasper, Shining Garment, 19–20. 28. Jasper, Shining Garment, 24. 29. Jasper, Shining Garment, 178. 30. Jasper, Shining Garment, 189. 31. Jasper, Shining Garment, 231. 32. See Clarice Martin, “Womanist Interpretation of the New Testament: The Quest for Holistic and Inclusive Translation and Interpretation,” in I Found God in Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader, ed. Mitzi Smith (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2015), 19–41. 33. Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 89. 34. Boyarin, Border Lines, 95. 35. Boyarin, Border Lines, 103. 36. Boyarin, Border Lines, 104. 37. Boyarin, Border Lines, 131. 38. Boyarin, Border Lines, 92. 39. Stan Harstine, A History of the Two-Hundred-Year Scholarly Debate about the Purpose of the Prologue to the Gospel of John: How Does Our Understanding of the Prologue Affect Our Interpretation of the Subsequent Text? (Lewiston: Mellen, 2015), 41, 84. 40. Günter Kruck, “Zur theologischen Bedeutung des Prologs im Johannesevangelium,” in Der Johannesprolog, ed. Günter Kruck (Germany: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2009), 13–25. 41. Kruck, “Zur theologischen Bedeutung,” 24. 42. Painter, Quest, 137–138. 43. Painter, Quest, 150–158. 44. Painter, Quest, 160–158.

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45. William Loader, Jesus in John’s Gospel: Structure and Issues in Johannine Christology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2017), 45. 46. Loader, Jesus, 72. 47. Loader, Jesus, 123, 317. 48. C. H. Dodd considers the prologue “a proem to the whole gospel” based on philosophical conceptions in The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (New York: Cambridge University, 1970), 292–296; Marianne Meye Thompson has an entire chapter devoted to the John 1:14 but nowhere discusses the ethnic implications of Jesus’s humanity, the kinship significance of “flesh,” nor the ethnic division or hostility in the prologue in The Humanity of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 33–52; Udo Schnelle argues that Johannine Christology is a reaction to docetic Christology in Antidocetic Christology in the Gospel of John, trans. Linda Maloney (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 213–237; John O’Grady notices how the prologue parallels various themes in the Gospel but does not describe them as ethnic or kinship conflict in “The Prologue and Chapter 17 of the Gospel of John,” in What We Have Heard from the Beginning: The Past, Present, and Future of Johannine Studies, ed. Tom Thatcher (Waco: Baylor, 2007), 215–228 [esp. 218]; John Ashton highlights the theme of creation and how Jesus’s rejection and hostility are adumbrated in the prologue, but he interprets this hostility in terms of moral dualism—a rejection of revelation and wisdom by the Jews. See Understanding the Fourth Gospel, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford, 2007), 365–383, 389–395; Ashton, The Gospel of John and Christian Origins (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014), 152–155; Paul Rainbow highlights the prologue’s main theme of Jesus’s divine origin and revelatory role in Johannine Theology: The Gospel, The Epistles, and the Apocalypse (Michigan: InterVarsity, 2014), 36, 73, 98, 148–150. 49. Loader, “The Significance of John 1:14–18 for Understanding John’s Approach to Law and Ethics,” The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 19 (2016): 194–201 [esp. 198]. 50. Loader, Jesus, 315–325, 330. 51. Love Sechrest, A Former Jew: Paul and the Dialects of Race (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009), 53–56; Buell, Why This New Race, 1–13, 151–152; Buell, “Rethinking the Relevance of Race for Early Christian Self– Definition,” HTR 94.4 (2001): 453; J.  Daniel Hays, From Every People and Nation: A Biblical Theology of Race (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 141–156. 52. Hippocrates, Air, Water, Places, 24.60. 53. Hippocrates, Air, Water, Places, 24.40–59. 54. Plato, “She established your State, choosing the spot wherein you were born since she perceived therein a climate duly blended, and how that it

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would bring forth men of supreme wisdom” (Tim. 24c). Plato also observes that some regions “are naturally superior to others for the breeding of men of a good or bad type. Other areas are more suitable for living because the wind, sun, water, and soil not only affect the body but are equally able to effect similar results in their souls as well” (Leg. 747d–e). Likewise, Aristotle echoes similar remarks of Greek superiority: “the Greek race participates in both characters, just as it occupies the middle position geographically, for it is both spirited and intelligent; hence it continues to be free and to have very good political institutions, and to be capable of ruling all mankind if it attains constitutional unity” (Pol. 7.1327b). Aristotle also asserts that “those men who dwell in the north have stiff hair and are courageous while those who dwell further south are cowardly and have soft hair” (Physiogn. 806b15). 55. Vitruvius, On Architecture, 6.1.10–11; 6.1.3–5. 56. Eric Gruen, Rethinking the Other in Antiquity (Princeton: NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), 356; Gruen, Diaspora: Jews Amidst Greeks and Romans (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 19; Frank Snowden also does not find “race” in the ancient world having any consequence in judging a person’s worth in Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco–Roman Experience (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), 216–218. Snowden has been recently challenged by David Goldenberg who insists that environmental theories led to anti-black sentiment in the ancient world. See “Racism, Color Symbolism, and Color Prejudice,” in The Origins of Racism in the West, ed. Miriam Eliav–Feldon, Benjamin Isaac, and Joseph Ziegler (New York: Cambridge, 2009), 88–108. 57. Adrian Sherwin-White, Racial Prejudice in Imperial Rome (New York: Cambridge, 1970), 1; Denise McCoskey, Race Antiquity and Its Legacy (New York: Oxford, 2012), 9; Benjamin Isaac, Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), 1–37; Eliav-Feldon et  al., Origins of Racism in the West (New York: Cambridge, 2009), 9; Peter Schäfer, Judeophobia: Attitudes toward the Jews in the Ancient World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 6. 58. Andrew Benko, Race in John’s Gospel: Toward an Ethnos-Conscious Approach (Lanham, MD: Fortress Press, 2019), 5; Rodolfo Galvan Estrada III, A Pneumatology of Race in the Gospel of John: An Ethnocritical Study (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2019), 19–22. 59. Social-scientific scholars highlight the need for an approach beyond historicism. See Bruce Malina, Christian Origins and Cultural Anthropology: Practical Models for Biblical Interpretation (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010), 1–9; John Elliot, What is Social Scientific Criticism? (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1993), 7; Steve Barton, “Historical Criticism and

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Social Scientific Perspective,” in Hearing the New Testament: Strategies for Interpretation, ed. Joel Green (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995), 69–74. 60. Lynne St. Clair Darden, Scripturalizing Revelation: An African American Postcolonial Reading of Empire (Atlanta: SBL, 2015), 16. 61. Ivan Hannaford, Race: The History of an Idea in the West (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1996), 6–17; Ali Rattansi, “Race,” in Dictionary of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2003), 241–245. 62. Fredrik Barth, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 1969), 10. 63. Barth, Ethnic, 10–11; Sandro Gindro adds that the term “ethnicity” developed as a form of identification to describe cultural, psychological, and social characteristics that differed from class or race. See “Ethnicity,” in Dictionary of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2003), 94. 64. Barth, Ethnic, 13–14. 65. Barth, Ethnic, 15. 66. UNESCO, “Fallacies of Racism Exposed: UNESCO Publishes Declaration by World’s Scientists,” Courier 3.6–7 (United States), July-­Aug. 1950, 1; Muddathir Abdel Rahim, Georges Balandier, et al., “UNESCO Statement on Race and Racial Prejudice,” Current Anthropology 9.4 (1968): 270–272. 67. Andreas Wimmer, Ethnic Boundary Making (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 2–9. 68. David James and Matthew Oware, “Ethnicity and Race” in Dictionary of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2003), 99–102. See also Janet Helms and Regine Talleyrand, “Race is Not Ethnicity,” American Psychologist 52.11 (1997): 1246–1247; Robert Swierenga, “Ethnicity in Historical Perspective,” Social Science 52.1 (1977): 31–44. 69. James and Oware, “Ethnicity and Race,” 101. 70. Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, Critical Race Theory (New York: New York University, 2012), 8. 71. Tat-siong Benny Liew, “Margins and (Cutting-)Edges: On the (IL) Legitimacy and Intersections of Race, Ethnicity, and (Post)Colonialism,” in Postcolonial Biblical Criticism: Interdisciplinary Intersections, ed. Fernando Segovia and Stephen Moore (New York: T&T Clark, 2005), 114–165 [esp. 121–127]. 72. Ann Phoenix, “Dealing with Difference: The Recursive and the New,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 21.5 (1998): 859–880 [esp. 876]. 73. Matt 4:15; John 11:48; 1 Cor 1:23. 74. Matt 13:47; Mark 7:26; 9:29; 1 Cor 12:10.

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75. Georg Bertram, “ἔθνος, ἐθνικός,” TDNT 2:364–371; Friedrich Büchsel, “γένος” TDNT 1:684–685; Herodotus, 1.143; 1.56; Diodorus, 2.46.4; Josephs, Ant. 15.384. 76. Isaac, Invention of Racism, 35. 77. Jonathan Hall, Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity (New York: Cambridge, 2000), 25. 78. Buell, Why This New Race, 1. 79. Benko, Race, 22–21. 80. Sechrest, Former, 54–60. 81. Sechrest, Former, 44–81. 82. Sechrest, Former, 81–90. 83. Sechrest, Former, 67. 84. Sechrest, Former, 84, 92. 85. Sechrest, Former, 92–93. 86. Sechrest, Former, 94. 87. Sechrest, Former, 100. 88. Sechrest, Former, 102. 89. The historic relationship between the Gospel of John and Asia Minor is affirmed by Polycrates. He defends the Quartodeciman practice of celebrating Jesus’s crucifixion on the Passover by insisting that they inherited this tradition from the Apostle John and Philip, Polycarp, Melito, and other leaders (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.24). In addition, we also find the association of the Gospel with Ephesus in Irenaeus, Haer. 3.11.1; Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.18.1; 3.20.11; 3.23.4–19; 3.39; 5.24; for a further review of the possible experiences of Jews in Asia Minor and how the Gospel would have been received in Ephesus see Sjef van Tilborg, Reading John in Ephesus (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 3, 33, 41–56, 63–74; John Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan (Berkley: University of California, 1996), 259–281. 90. This is similar to Keener’s argument about the reliability of the Gospels in Christobiography: Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2019), 499. 91. For a review of Heracleon’s commentary, see Einar Thomassen, “Heracleon,” in The Legacy of John: Second-Century Reception of the Fourth Gospel (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 173–210; see also Paul-Hubert Poirier, who suggests that the Trimorphic Protennoia polemically reinterpreted the Johannine prologue, in “The Trimorphic Protennoi (NHC XII,1) and the Johannine Prologue: A Reconsideration,” in The Legacy of John: Second-­ Century Reception of the Fourth Gospel (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 93–103 [esp. 101]. 92. J.  Louis Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (Louisville: Westminster, 2003), 61.

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93. Brown, Community of the Beloved Disciple: The Life, Loves, and Hates of an Individual Church in New Testament Times (New York: Paulist, 1979), 55–59. 94. Ray Alan Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), 218; David Lamb, Text, Context, and the Johannine Community: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of the Johannine Writings (New York: T&T Clark, 2015), 203–204; Lindars, John, 35–42; Richard Bauckham, The Gospel for All Christians (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 1–11; Bauckham, The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple: Narrative, History, and Theology in the Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 13–14, 113–123; Keener suggests that some godfearers would have been in the Johannine community but would not have been the primary group, in John, 1:153, 158–159. 95. Bauckham, Testimony, 13.

References Ashton, John. Understanding the Fourth Gospel. 2nd ed. New  York: Oxford University, 2008. ———. The Gospel of John and Christian Origins. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2014. Barclay, John. Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan. Berkley, CA: University of California, 1996. Barrett, C. K. The Gospel According to St. John. London: SPCK, 1970. Barth, Fredrik. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 1969. Barton, Steve. “Historical Criticism and Social Scientific Perspective.” Pages 69–74 in Hearing the New Testament: Strategies for Interpretation. Edited by Joel Green. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995. Bauckham, Richard. The Gospel for All Christians. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998 ———. The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple: Narrative, History, and Theology in the Gospel of John. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2007. Beasley-Murray, George. John. Word Biblical Commentary 36. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1999. Benko, Andrew. Race in John’s Gospel: Toward an Ethnos-Conscious Approach. Lanham, MD: Fortress Press, 2019. Benny Liew, Tat-siong. “Margins and (Cutting-)Edges: On the (IL)Legitimacy and Intersections of Race, Ethnicity, and (Post)Colonialism.” Pages 114–165 in Postcolonial Biblical Criticism: Interdisciplinary Intersections. Edited by Fernando Segovia and Stephen Moore. New York: T&T Clark, 2005. Boyarin, Daniel. Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007.

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Brown, Raymond. The Gospel According to John 1–12. New York: Doubleday, 1966. ———. “Other Sheep Not of This Fold: The Johannine Perspective on Christian Diversity in the Late First Century Author.” Journal of Biblical Literature 97.1 (1978): 5–22. ———. Community of the Beloved Disciple: The Life, Loves, and Hates of an Individual Church in New Testament Times. New York: Paulist, 1979. ———. Introduction to the Gospel of John. Edited by Francis Moloney. New York: Doubleday, 2003. Buell, Denise. “Rethinking the Relevance of Race for Early Christian Self-­ Definition.” Harvard Theological Review 94.4 (2001): 449–476. ———. “Race and Universalism in Early Christianity.” JECS 10.4 (2002): 429–468. ———. Why This New Race: Ethnic Reasoning in Early Christianity. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Bultmann, Rudolf. The Gospel of John. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1976. Culpepper, Ray Alan. Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1987. Delgado, Richard and Jean Stefancic. Critical Race Theory. New York: New York University, 2012. Dodd, Charles H. The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1970. Eliav-Feldon, M. et al., Origins of Racism in the West. New York: Cambridge, 2009. Elliot, John. What Is Social Scientific Criticism? Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 1993. Estrada, Rodolfo. A Pneumatology of Race in the Gospel of John: An Ethnocritical Study. Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2019. Evans, Craig. Word and Glory: On the Exegetical and Theological Background of John’s Prologue. New York: T&T Clark, 1993. Gindro, Sandro. “Ethnicity.” Pages 94–99 in Dictionary of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture. Edited by Guido Bolaffi, Raffaele Bracalenti, Peter Braham, and Sandro Gindro. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2003. Goldenberg, David. “Racism, Color Symbolism, and Color Prejudice.” Pages 88–108 in The Origins of Racism in the West. Edited by Miriam Eliav–Feldon, Benjamin Isaac, and Joseph Ziegler. New York: Cambridge, 2009. Gordley, Matthew. “The Johannine Prologue and Jewish Didactic Hymn Traditions: A New Case for Reading the Prologue as a Hymn.” Journal of Biblical Literature 128.4 (2009): 781–802. Gruen, Eric. Diaspora: Jews Amidst Greeks and Romans. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002. ———. Rethinking the Other in Antiquity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011. Hall, Jonathan. Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity. New York: Cambridge, 2000.

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Hannaford, Ivan. Race: The History of an Idea in the West. Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins University Press, 1996. Harris, Elizabeth. Prologue and Gospel: The Theology of the Fourth Evangelist. England: Sheffield, 1994. Harstine, Stan. A History of the Two-Hundred-Year Scholarly Debate about the Purpose of the Prologue to the Gospel of John: How Does Our Understanding of the Prologue Affect Our Interpretation of the Subsequent Text? Lewiston, ME: Mellen, 2015. Hays, J.  Daniel. From Every People and Nation: A Biblical Theology of Race. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003. Helms, Janet and Regine Talleyrand. “Race Is Not Ethnicity.” American Psychologist 52.11 (1997): 1246–1247 Isaac, Benjamin. Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004. James, David and Matthew Oware. “Ethnicity and Race.” Pages 99–102  in Dictionary of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture. Edited by Guido Bolaffi, Raffaele Bracalenti, Peter Braham, & Sandro Gindro. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2003. Jasper, Alison. The Shining Garment of the Text: Gendered Reading of John’s Prologue. Sheffield, 1998. Keener, Craig. The Gospel of John: A Commentary. Vols. 1–2. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003. ———. Christobiography: Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2019. Kittel, G., and G.  Friedrich, eds. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Translated by G.  W. Bromiley. 10 vols. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964–1976. Kruck, Günter. “Zur theologischen Bedeutung des Prologs im Johannesevangelium.” Pages 13–25 in Der Johannesprolog. Edited by Günter Kruck. Germany: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2009. Lamb, David. Text, Context, and the Johannine Community: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of the Johannine Writings. New York: T&T Clark, 2015. Lieu, Judith. Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco–Roman World. New York: Oxford, 2004. Lindars, Barnabas. The Gospel of John. London: Oliphants, 1972. Loader, William. “The Significance of John 1:14–18 for Understanding John’s Approach to Law and Ethics.” The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 19 (2016): 194–201. ———. Jesus in John’s Gospel: Structure and Issues in Johannine Christology. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2017. Malina, Bruce. Christian Origins and Cultural Anthropology: Practical Models for Biblical Interpretation. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010.

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Martin, Clarice. “Womanist Interpretation of the New Testament: The Quest for Holistic and Inclusive Translation and Interpretation.” Pages 19–41 in I Found God in Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader. Edited by Mitzi Smith. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2015. Martyn, J.  Louis. History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel. Louisville, KY: Westminster, 2003. McCoskey, Denise. Race: Antiquity and Its Legacy. New York: Oxford, 2012. Morris, Leon. The Gospel According to John. Michigan, MI: Eerdmans, 1995. O’Grady, John. “The Prologue and Chapter 17 of the Gospel of John.” Pages 215–228 in What We Have Heard from the Beginning: The Past, Present, and Future of Johannine Studies. Edited by Tom Thatcher. Waco, TX: Baylor, 2007. Painter, John. The Quest for the Messiah: The History, Literature and Theology of the Johannine Community. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1993. Phoenix, Ann. “Dealing with Difference: The Recursive and the New.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 21.5 (1998): 859–880. Poirier, Paul-Hubert. “The Trimorphic Protennoi (NHC XII,1) and the Johannine Prologue: A Reconsideration.” Pages 93–103  in The Legacy of John: Second-­ Century Reception of the Fourth Gospel. Edited by Thomas Rasimus. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Rahim, Muddathir Abdel, Georges Balandier, et  al. “UNESCO Statement on Race and Racial Prejudice.” Current Anthropology 9.4 (1968): 270–272. Rainbow, Paul. Johannine Theology: The Gospel, The Epistles, and the Apocalypse. Michigan, MI: InterVarsity, 2014. Rattansi, Ali. “Race.” Pages 239–245 in Dictionary of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2003. Sandmel, Samuel. “Parallelomania.” Journal of Biblical Literature 81.1 (1962): 1–13. Schäfer, Peter. Judeophobia: Attitudes toward the Jews in the Ancient World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998. Schnelle, Udo. Antidocetic Christology in the Gospel of John. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1992. Sechrest, Love. A Former Jew: Paul and the Dialects of Race. New  York: Bloomsbury, 2009. Segovia, Fernando. “The Journey(s) of the Word of God: A Reading of the Plot of the Fourth Gospel.” Pages 23–54  in The Fourth Gospel from a Literary Perspective. Edited by R.  Alan Culpepper and Fernando Segovia. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991. Segovia, Fernando. “John 1:1–18 As Entrée into Johannine Reality Representation Ramifications.” Pages 33–64 in Word, Theology, and Community in John. Edited by Fernando F.  Segovia, John Painter, and R.  Culpepper. St. Louis: Chalice, 2002.

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Sherwin-White, Adrian. Racial Prejudice in Imperial Rome. New  York: Cambridge, 1970. Snowden, Frank. Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco–Roman Experience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970. St. Clair Darden, Lynne. Scripturalizing Revelation: An African American Postcolonial Reading of Empire. Atlanta: SBL, 2015. Swierenga, Robert. “Ethnicity in Historical Perspective.” Social Science 52.1 (1977): 31–44. Thomassen, Einar. “Heracleon.” Pages 173–210  in The Legacy of John: Second-­ Century Reception of the Fourth Gospel. Edited by Thomas Rasimus. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Thompson, Marianne Meye. The Humanity of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1988. ———. John. Louisville, KY: Westminster, 2015. Tilborg, Sjef van. Reading John in Ephesus. Leiden: Brill, 1996. Tupamahu, Ekaputra. “The Stubborn Invisibility of Whiteness in Biblical Scholarship.” Political Theology Network. November 12, 2020. https://politicaltheology.com/the–stubborn–invisibility–of–whiteness–in–biblical– scholarship/. UNESCO.  United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization “Fallacies of Racism Exposed: UNESCO Publishes Declaration by World’s Scientists.” UNESCO Courier 3 (1950): 1–16. Wimmer, Andreas. Ethnic Boundary Making. New  York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

CHAPTER 2

Reading the Ancient World with Chicano Eyes

All biblical interpretations are tamed eisegetical readings. There is no way to avoid the impact that one’s context or social location has in reading the biblical text. Since biblical interpretations are subjective, this also means that interpretive pluralism is inevitable.1 The realities of hermeneutical pluralism are not new for Latino/a/x biblical interpreters. Latinx hermeneutics begin their interpretive project with this presupposition. It is quite arrogant for biblical interpreters to presume that their context or experiences have no influential role. But how many Euro-American biblical scholars will describe their own readings as “White,” “European,” or “American?”2 Moreover, today the term “contextual” is utilized to label non-Western interpretations and theologies. Many Western biblical scholars put too much trust on the sanitizing power of their hermeneutical methodologies and their ability to expunge any ideological or cultural fingerprints from their interpretations. Latinx interpreters do not make this assumption. They challenge interpreters to identify their presuppositions, examine their ideologies, and embrace their contextual locations. We read the Bible with the entirety of our lives— our ethnoracial identity, culture, gendered experiences, political context, and spirituality to name a few. Diverse experiences also suggest diverse readings and approaches to the text. Indeed, no singular Latinx method can account for the totality of the Latinx experience.3 But what is Latinx biblical interpretation? How does a Latinx hermeneutic uncover, highlight, or enable us to read the text with a critical

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dialogue between the context of the ancient world and the critical perspectives and experiences of the Latinx writer? The goal of this chapter is to explain how I will utilize this approach by highlighting key contributors to Latinx hermeneutics and its early influential pioneers in Latin American Liberation Theology (LALT) that have greatly contributed to its hermeneutical formation. I do not assume that LALT has an influential role in all Latinx readers, but I do want to highlight its influential role and contribution to the methodology. Furthermore, we will also notice that not all Latinx interpreters agree on the amount of weight that should be placed on the biblical text, its ancient context, or the context and experiences of the Latinx reader. Some Latinx interpreters place more emphasis on the context of the reader, his or her experiences, culture, and less on the biblical text or cultural context. Others, such as myself, place greater weight on the historical-cultural context of the text instead of the experiences of the reader. There are diverse points of entry from which Latinx readers interpret the text. These differences and others will be explored in this chapter. First, though, I will briefly explain my choice in terminology and what I mean by the terms “Latinx,” “Latin American,” and “Chicano/a/x” and why I will seldomly use the term “Hispanic” and prefer the term “Latino.”

Latinx, Latin American, Hispanic, and the Chicano/a/x The term “Latinx” is a gender inclusive term that aims to include both Latinos and Latinas in a non-binary way.4 This is primarily a North American self-identifying term. I learned this in an awkward manner. When I was teaching a Spanish class at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, I used the term “Latinx” to describe the students. A Latina in the class raised her hand and asked, “¿Qué es ‘Latinx’ y por qué se llaman así?” Her response informed me that this term did not necessarily reflect how first-generation Latinos/as in the U.S. or Latinos/as outside the U.S. defined themselves. “Latinx” is a North American term. It emerges because the gendered nature of the Spanish language does not automatically presume that the use of a masculine noun “Latino” would be inclusive. We must also notice, though, that there has been some rejection of the term “Latinx.” It can also be viewed as an American imperialistic imposition on the gendered Spanish language.5 Others find the term

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primarily used in academic or activist spaces, not in Latin American communities.6 I personally do not have a particular preference or rejection of this term. I understand why some utilize this term instead of the “Latino/a” designation. In fact, the term “Latino” itself is an umbrella category that can unite our disparate ethnic identities, but also has the potential to hide our differences. As such, I will only use “Latinx” in reference to all Latinos/as within the U.S. while admitting that I do not use this phrase for myself. The term “Latin American” will be primarily used to describe Latinos/ as outside of a North American context, specifically those in Central and South America. This does not assume that the term “Latin” is also free from trouble, especially since it presupposes that Latinos/as come from Italy. Furthermore, the term “Hispanic” is also problematic. It was developed in the 1980s by the Office of Management and Budget of the Reagan administration in order to categorize the diverse Latinos/as. The term assumes that all Latinos/as originate from Spain, which denies our African, Chinese, and indigenous roots in the Americas. This term is invented by American policy makers in order to create an umbrella category that would stereotypically define all Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and other people groups from the global south.7 Finally, “Chicano/a/x” emerged during the civil rights era of the 1960s and 1970s in reference to the politically active Mexican Americans who reclaimed their ethnic identity, indigenous origins, and rights as citizens. They were the U.S.-born children of Mexican immigrants. They were not accepted in Mexico because of their inferior pronunciation of the Spanish language and were rejected by Americans because of their Mexican ancestry. As Virgilio Elizondo notices, they usually accept their Mexican heritage while linguistically, socially, and culturally they identify more with the U.S. mentality and lifestyle.8 While these terms may overlap, used interchangeably, and have problematic connotations as mentioned above, they also reveal the diversity of the Latino/a/x identity. To avoid confusion, however, this monograph will utilize these terms according to the above definitions. When referring to myself, I will use “Latino” or “Chicano.”

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Latin American Liberation Theology and Its Influence on Latinx Hermeneutics Although Latinx hermeneutics developed on its own in a North American context, the Latin American Liberation Theologian’s movements of the 1960s and 1970s play an important role in helping us understand the contours of Latinx hermeneutics. In many ways, LALT contributed to the vocabulary, ideas, and themes of Latinx hermeneutics in their own Euro-­ American struggle.9 Furthermore, LALT did not develop from nowhere. Their interpretive methodology stems from the political and spiritual Bible reading methods of the Latin American people, who were also known as the “Ecclesial Base Communities.”10 The experiences and context of political oppression, poverty, socio-economic class struggle, and theme of liberation decentered the “exegetical” methods of the academy.11 As we will notice, these liberational themes seep into later North American Latinx approaches and have been influential upon many Latinx biblical scholars— including myself. Gustavo Gutierrez Although Gustavo Gutierrez’s goal was not to write a biblical hermeneutic, his discussion on the Bible in relation to the Latin American context demonstrates how one could read with a commitment to liberation.12 He affirms that no one has a neutral perspective on God or the Bible. The life of the church is the “locus theologicus” for all reflection.13 Latin Americans read the Bible from a particular vantage point rooted in a specific context.14 Biblical meaning emerges from a dialogue between these two aspects. He states, “we approach the Bible from our experience as believers and members of the church. It is in light of that experience that we ask our questions. … We indeed read the Bible, but we can also say that the Bible ‘reads us.’”15 The continual movement between the Latin American Church and the Bible creates the possibility for a new liberative interpretation. This is not to say that biblical exegesis is superfluous.16 Instead, the meaning of the Bible is shaped by a critical reflection on the concrete needs of the oppressed. Liberation theology, in this sense, emerges from a reading that seeks the freedom from everything that dehumanizes and prevents one from living according to God’s will.17 The Latin American Church, though, is not exempt from paradigms and ideologies contrary to the desire for liberation. Esa Autero’s empirical

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studies in Latin America reveal this fact.18 Being oppressed and poor does not necessarily provide a guarantee that one will read the Bible with a commitment to freedom. The oppressed can uphold the perspectives, views, biblical interpretations, and the theology of the oppressor. As such, Gutierrez does propose that a liberative hermeneutic undertaken by the oppressed must overcome the “colonial mentality.”19 Gutierrez draws from Paulo Freire to advocate for a critical awareness of one’s condition.20 It is in the process of conscientization that the oppressed are able to reject their oppressive consciousness.21 Only after conscientization can they commit to the transformation and building up of society. Although Gutierrez identifies a conscience awakening as a process one must undergo, it is also something that the local church engages in its proclamation of the gospel, which he describes as a “conscientizing evangelization.”22 This proclamation of the gospel, as Gutierrez states, must include a denunciation of injustice, solidarity with the poor, and rejection of wealthy and powerful interest.23 The Spirit is also involved with the process toward conscientization. Gutierrez affirms that the Spirit leads people toward liberty.24 And if one walks according to the Spirit, Gutierrez believes that doing so will lead one to think and proclaim a liberative gospel message.25 We can thus recognize that for Gutierrez, pneumatological conscientization and the context of the Latin American Church are the hermeneutical keys to reading the Bible. J. Severino Croatto Another influential pioneer in Liberation Theology is J. Severino Croatto from Buenos Aires, Argentina. He affirms that texts are polysemic with a reservoir of potential meaning.26 This claim may seem that the Bible can be interpreted in any way, but this is not the case.27 He recognizes that since the original writer and receivers of the text are no longer present, it is impossible to uncover how they “originally” understood the text.28 As a result, what we have are interpretive possibilities, with some better than others. Croatto’s hermeneutics must also be understood as a critique of those who insist that a biblical text can have only one objective meaning.29 But if every reader’s social location is different, and every interpretation is subjective, then whose reading is the most preferential? Croatto would respond by pointing to the primary readers of the Bible and their experiences. He detects that the origin of the Bible was marked by a profound experience of suffering, oppression, and a desire for liberation from

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imperial powers.30 This also suggests that liberation is central to the biblical kerygma.31 Therefore, the privileged hermeneutical locus is not the rich, the elite, or the scholarly. It is with the poor and oppressed. As Croatto finds, the Bible was written for the poor and oppressed and in light of their experience and desire for liberation.32 Croatto also explains that the biblical context closely resembles the experiences of Latin Americans. There is a similar horizon that corresponds with each other. This is not a simple desire to find parallels between the text and situation of the reader. Instead, Croatto argues that “the situation of the reader is seen as allowing the reader to discern in the text dimensions that prove relevant.”33 This is why Croatto states that “exegesis is eisegesis.”34 That is, Latin American readers enter the text on the basis of their horizon of experience.35 There is a mutual illumination that occurs between exegesis and eisegesis that is part of the hermeneutical circle.36 A liberative reading of the text, however, must come after the reader has a conscientization process,37 which Croatto also notices is not a foreign theme to the Bible. Croatto asserts that the Bible, the prophets, and Jesus are conscientizers.38 They awaken the reader to the realities of their oppressive conditions. In fact, Croatto argues that it is impossible to read the Bible with a liberative hermeneutic without this conscientizing experience, yet his liberative hermeneutic calls our attention to the profound limitations that people of privilege and power have in interpreting Scripture. This does not mean that the poor and oppressed are better interpreters of Scripture. They, too, may hold colonial interpretations that would further justify their dehumanizing conditions or prevent them from taking actions that would lead to a liberative life. Reading the Bible is therefore not enough to guarantee that one will become aware of one’s oppressive reality. Like Gutierrez, a liberative hermeneutic cannot occur apart from conscientization. Juan Luis Segundo Juan Luis Segundo was a Jesuit priest from Uruguay who was critical of Western theology because it failed to bring a liberating message for the vulnerable, poor, and politically oppressed. He noticed that there was a relationship between how we interpret Scripture and the ideologies we advocate. Theologians presumed that they are applying the Word of God objectively to a present circumstance.39 Instead, they were preserving

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oppressive conditions by promoting readings influenced by an underlying ideology.40 Segundo thus rejects the notion that theologians can operate as impartial, autonomous, and neutral academics.41 His critique of ideologies does not assume that they are to be shunned. Instead, we are to reject the assumption that theology is free from such influence.42 If theologies are infected by ideologies, how are we to develop biblical interpretations that address oppressive conditions? To do so, Segundo proposes a “hermeneutical circle.” Simply defined, it is the “continuing change in our interpretation of the Bible which is dictated by the continual changes in our present-day reality, both individually and socially.”43 This interpretive movement flows back and forth between the Bible and one’s context with a critical analysis of the dominant interpretation of Scripture. This approach, however, has two preconditions. First, one must ask questions that challenge the way we think about our situations. Second, we must create new interpretations of the Bible that are profound and enriching.44 With these two preconditions, we move through the four steps of the hermeneutical circle, which includes ideological suspicion of the present, application of this suspicion to a general perspective or theology, an exegetical suspicion of a prevailing biblical interpretation, and finally, development of a new interpretation on the faith.45 This methodology is primarily a hermeneutic of suspicion. It aims to question, detect, deconstruct, and dethrone biblical interpretations that support the status quo.46 In addition, the Bible for Segundo reveals various responses to historic problems.47 Simply interpreting what the Bible meant is not the goal of liberation interpreters. Interpretation must move toward praxis.48 For this reason, the hermeneutical process requires a creativity that challenges the interpreter to “imagine what the gospel message would be if it were formulated today” and fill in the gap between the text and our present circumstance.49 It is within this gap that Segundo believes the Spirit aids the interpreter in creating new ideologies. The liberation theologian must develop a “deutero–learning” process, which is the ability to learn how to learn, especially within the context of the local church.50 By reflecting and learning how different people reacted and applied God’s revelation to their situation, interpreters can learn how to do the same for their context.51 Segundo thus encourages interpreters to recognize that the Bible is about God responding to specific needs and specific situations; the Bible for him is an educational manual the Spirit uses to address the liberative needs of the reader.

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LALT and the Impact on Latinx Hermeneutics There are three major contributions of LALT hermeneutics that can help us understand the Latinx hermeneutics in general and how I situate myself in this conversation. First, LALT challenged the assumption that biblical interpretations were free from ideological, social, economic, or political interests. They exposed the fact that biblical interpretation includes embedded agendas that support or maintain the status quo. A hermeneutic of suspicion was embraced to detect and dethrone oppressive readings of the Bible, especially those so-called objective interpretations. No longer can we assume that biblical interpretations are neutral and free from biases. Biblical interpretations are inherently subjective, contextual, and ideological. Second, LALT moved the discussion from reading the Bible with the academy to reading the Bible with the Latin American people. The people reclaimed the right to interpret the Bible for themselves, no longer under the approval of the “expert” or scholar versed in Western ideologies. This does not mean that exegesis was rejected. Instead, the traditional methods were considered insufficient for the questions, problems, and challenges of the Latin American Church. This also meant that the experiences of the poor and oppressed, the real flesh-and-blood realities of the Latin American reader, were brought to the dialogical center of biblical interpretation. The Latin American church was to be viewed as the “locus theologicus” and privileged location for biblical reflection. Thus, the boundaries between eisegesis and exegesis were blurred, especially since the biblical text provides the potential for new rereadings inspired by new questions from different contexts. Third, LALT include the role of conscientization as an important factor in a liberative interpretation. In other words, it is not enough to be Latin American, poor, or oppressed. One needs to have a critical awareness of one’s oppressive reality in order to be an interpreter with a liberative agenda. A liberative reading can only occur by someone who has experienced conscientization. This occurs by the Spirit, evangelization, and the proclamation of the gospel. Raising critical conscience was necessary because even Latin American readers and churches have the potential to continue oppressive readings and maintain the mindset of the oppressor. These three major contributions are not to say that the movement was without weaknesses. Néstor Medina notices that LALT tended to exclude women in their conversations and uncritically adopted Marxists social

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analysis.52 Other problems include the lack of attention to the environment, tendency to professionalize and adopt European versions of theology, and inattention to ethnocultural plurality.53 These shortfalls do not suppose that we should disregard LALT’s impact to the hermeneutical conversation. Furthermore, it is not fair to say that their interpretive methodology halted at the border and had no influence with emerging Latinx biblical interpretation or evangelical theology in North America.54 Osvaldo Vena proposes that the only differences between Latinx and LALT hermeneutics is proximity to power, namely the U.S., and the pressure for Latinx hermeneutics to respond to neocolonial influences.55 Francisco Lozada even admits that liberation hermeneutics resonated with him as a Latino biblical critic given its ideological nature toward the text and reading communities.56 Edwin Aponte and Miguel De La Torre also notice that liberation theology has influenced Latinx theology. There is a similarity of language, concern for justice, liberation of the oppressed, and focus on reading the Bible from the context of the community. But, as Aponte and De La Torre also mention, we should not confuse the two contexts.57

Latinx Hermeneutics Although LALT hermeneutics is not Latinx hermeneutics, they do have similar motifs. These pioneers shaped how we speak, think, and practice hermeneutics for a distinct but similar context. They gave us the language to critique and expose colonial, oppressive, and dehumanizing readings that were justified by so-called objective methodologies of the Western academy. In a sense, LALT’s hermeneutical approaches taught Latinx biblical interpreters how to dig our own spiritual wells of wisdom. More specifically, with my own personal hermeneutical development, they taught me the importance of dialogue between the world of the text and the Latinx context, the need for raising critical conscientization, having suspicion of those who claim objectivity, and the role of the Spirit in creating new interpretive possibilities. LALT scholars, however, were not alone in contributing to the trajectory of Latinx hermeneutics, and biblical scholars are not the only ones talking or writing about hermeneutics. There are Latino/a/x church historians, theologians, ethicists, and Chicanx studies scholars who are contributing to the hermeneutical conversation. This demonstrates that Latinx hermeneutics is an interdisciplinary enterprise and has not been set in stone. It is being consistently developed by emerging scholars in various

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fields who represent various Latinx experiences, identities, and religious traditions. Latinx biblical interpretation, although it may sound like liberation hermeneutics, is actually an interdisciplinary endeavor owned by no one. In this next section, I continue to draw the various themes and motifs in order to further situate my approach within this ever-changing landscape. Fernando Segovia Fernando Segovia made a major impact upon Latinx hermeneutics. He notices that the process for liberation and decolonization of hermeneutics began with the critique and dethronement of historical criticism in the early 1970s.58 Segovia found it a praiseworthy goal for historical criticism to presume that a reader could be impartial and objective through the adoption of scientific methods that denied particularity and contextuality.59 This approach, as he claims, is hegemonic, naïve, and dangerous.60 It expects all critics to interpret the Bible like Eurocentric critics.61 In fact, it dehumanizes the reader when it asks for the divestiture of all identity factors that constitute and characterize a person.62 Segovia asserts that this makes non-Western readers find their own traditions of interpretation excluded and considered “unscientific, irrelevant, and biased.”63 Segovia echoes a similar critique that LALT also made of the West. In fact, Segovia credits the erosion of the dominant historical-critical method and the philosophy of positivism to the liberation theologians, feminist theologians, and minority theologians.64 He thus proposes that we ought to read from our own social locations and contextualized communities. To do so is to imitate the giving of the Spirit in Acts 2, which is a hearing of the Bible in our own native tongue, a discourse no longer controlled by the center.65 Avoiding the flesh-and-blood context of a human being actually dehumanizes the reader.66 Segovia thus contends that we must take diversity to heart and recognize the diversities in texts, readings, and readers.67 Failing to do so, as he claims, is inherently colonialistic and imperialistic, given that it presumes the only way of reading Scripture is to interpret like Western readers. In specifically addressing Latino/a biblical hermeneutics, Segovia describes it as an exercise in “racial-ethnic criticism in general and minority biblical criticism in particular.”68 It is a bringing together of two fields of study that have their own scholarly features. He finds Latino/a biblical criticism more in common with other minoritized criticism such as African

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American and Asian American criticism.69 He also notices that many Latino/a critics focus intently on the religious communities, embracing a religious-theological reading of the Bible, and viewing the Bible as Scripture of the communities. Another aspect of this approach is that it allows the questions and aims flow from the socio-cultural experience of Latinos/as. And finally, he notices that Latino/a criticism itself is both grounded in the community and undertaken for the community.70 Segovia’s description of Latino/a hermeneutics does not suppose that he fails to propose his way forward. He advocates for “cultural studies” in biblical interpretation. As he describes, cultural hermeneutics “seeks to integrate, in different ways, the historical, formalist, and sociocultural questions and concerns of the other paradigms on a different key … with the situated and interested reader and interpreter always at its core.”71 It may take a variety of approaches but includes some basic principles. First, the text could be viewed as a medium, approached as a means, or understood as a construct. But any interpretation of the text is a “re-creation of its meaning and re-construction of its context.”72 Second, the meaning of the text is thus found in the dialogue between the text and reader, which are both socially and historically conditioned. Interpreters are not nameless, faceless, neutral, or impartial. They have a social location, theological presupposition, agenda, and a distinct human identity.73 Third, this also means that their readings are not universal.74 Segovia even echoes the liberation theologian, Severino Croatto, when he states, “all exegesis is ultimately eisegesis.”75 As we can observe, this hermeneutic is contextual. It embraces the identity of the reader, dialogical in the sense that meaning is developed between the text and context of the reader, and pluralistic given that no interpretation is made once and for all. At the heart of Segovia’s approach, though, is a hermeneutic that focuses on the reader and the reader’s ability to hear the text in his or her native tongue. Justo Gonzalez Justo Gonzalez, as a trained historian, argues that the Bible must be read in Spanish, which follows the Reformation’s desire to make the Bible available in the language of the readers.76 Thus “to read the Bible is to enter into dialogue with it.”77 He adamantly affirms that we never approach Scripture or learn of God from a neutral perspective. Does this mean that all interpretations are just dialogical perspectives? Gonzalez recognizes the

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possibility of this problem. He points out, however, that fragmentation, as he explains, is the failure to recognize that all theologies are contextual and therefore express a particular perspective.78 To thus speak of a “Hispanic” perspective is to speak of one of many possible ways of reading Scripture.79 This also means that there is no such thing as “one hermeneutical paradigm that fits all” Latinos/as.80 Gonzalez identifies five paradigms utilized when reading scripture. First, he notices that the overall Hispanic experience is marginality.81 To be marginal, as he defines, is to be in some marginal relationship from the center. This experience leads to different readings of the text that identify with marginal characters in the story.82 A second theme Gonzalez notices is poverty.83 Poverty is more than the lack of resources. Poverty dehumanizes people. It dispossesses not only of money but also of dignity, tradition, and identity.84 Third, the experience of being a mestizo is another hermeneutical lens. This identity was the immediate result of the Spanish conquest, which created a sense of belonging and not belonging.85 Hispanics reread the Bible from the perspective of ethnic mixing, clash of cultures, and dual cultural identities. A fourth paradigm Gonzalez proposes is exile and alienness. He suggests that for many Hispanics, including those born in the U.S., they often feel like newcomers and aliens in their own land.86 This paradigm enables them to identify with other figures in the Bible who were also aliens and strangers in their own land. Last, solidarity is Gonzalez’s final paradigm, which includes the theme of family and community.87 The implications of solidarity are expressively noted in biblical passages that discuss the Church as the household or family of God.88 In conclusion, the specific contribution Gonzalez brings are the five distinct Latinx experiences he identifies for reading the text. He asserts that the Bible not only provides information and guidance for our lives, but it is also a source for insight and strength for the Latinx community.89 Dialogue with the text from the Hispanic lens is key in Gonzalez’s biblical hermeneutic. He remarks that the Spirit makes the Church truly catholic by including a variety of languages and cultural perspectives. Like Segovia, Gonzalez insists that we must trust “the Spirit of God who will create communication while respecting our differences, and build intimacy while affirming our distinct identities.”90 Affirming this reality is what Gonzalez would describe as reading the Bible in Spanish.

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Ada María Isasi-Díaz Ada María Isasi-Díaz was a professor of ethics and theology who was an innovator of Hispanic theology also known as mujerista theology.91 Although not a biblical scholar, she insists that biblical interpretation is critical for the liberation of Latinas given that the many women only encounter the Bible under the supervision or authority of male authority figure who determines the meaning of the Bible for their lives.92 Like many other LALT and Latinx scholars, Isasi-Díaz also eschews the belief that one can have a neutral and objective interpretation of Scripture. She describes “objectivity” as merely the subjectivity of those who have the power to impose on others.93 Isasi-Díaz’s hermeneutical approach has a binomial oppression-­liberation paradigm.94 Oppression includes the experiences of sexism, patriarchy, ethnic prejudice, and classism. And the liberative experiences include the work to define their preferred future, interpret scripture for themselves, and be their own agents of history and moral choices.95 Biblical interpretation must facilitate this pursuit of liberation while recognizing the context of Latina oppression. Since it is the women’s context that determines how one uses the Bible, they submit the Bible to the Latina’s liberative needs. As Isasi-Díaz states, “The Bible is to be accepted as part of divine revelation and becomes authoritative for us only insofar as it contributes to our struggle for liberation.”96 Scripture is thus interpreted, appropriated, and used in order to determine the preferred liberative future for Latina women, shaped by how they see themselves and how they interpret Scripture.97 Isasi-Díaz states, “doing biblical exegesis is a way of claiming our right to think, to know critically—it is an element in our self-definition.”98 Isasi-Díaz also points out that if Latinas do not have interpretive agency, the Bible becomes something that could be used to control them.99 Biblical interpretation must be done by Latinas and for Latinas. The Bible must help Latina women understand the oppression they suffer, call them as a community of faith to struggle for justice, and not solely be read in an individualistic or pietistic manner.100 Isasi-Díaz explains that Bible stories help women ask questions and reflect upon their situation. This also means that one does not merely find the meaning of the text apart from some dialogue, or “interrelationship that is created between the reader, the writer, and the text.”101 This is needed because, as she asserts, scientific biblical studies ignore this aspect and therefore cannot provide a liberative meaning for mujeristas.

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We must also notice that Isasi-Díaz finds that being a mujerista interpreter is a choice; it is not given.102 She recognizes that the oppressed must be made conscious of their reality and oppression. How then does this occur? Similar to LALT, this occurs through solidarity with the oppressed, a commitment to understand the real causes of oppression, and the need to change the status quo.103 This is not just an illumination of one’s reality; it includes a dialogue about the conditions of their situation and a commitment to join the oppressed.104 There is a conscientizing experience necessary to reading the Bible. Indeed, the Bible and the experiences and context of the Latina are the primary sources God speaks through and addresses.105

Latinx Hermeneutics Defined As we noticed earlier, there are a variety of suggestions on what it means to be a “Latino/a/x” interpreter of the Bible. Other scholars include Efrain Agosto, who defines it as an “engagement of personal experience in the historical questioning of ancient texts.”106 Ahida Pilarski highlights the need for Latinas to undergo a process of conscientization that is informed by ethnicity, gender, hermeneutics, and faith.107 Eric Barreto suggests that Latino/a hermeneutics is a “type of ethnic discourse” that includes an ability to reflect on the lived realities of the Latino/a identity in order to “open up new interpretative possibilities.”108 Alejandro Botta considers Latino/a hermeneutics as “engaged scholarship” that expands the traditional methods by having a class-conscious and gender-conscious analysis of the biblical texts that corrects and takes away the interpretive authority of the Bible from oppressors.109 Miguel De La Torre proposes that we read the Bible through the eyes of the disenfranchised and oppressed.110 And Jacqueline Hidalgo points our attention to how Latina/o/x studies can facilitate an interdisciplinary conversation and epistemological shift for biblical studies.111 She explores how the Bible is scripturalized, that is, becomes a site of contentious struggle and serves as a homing device of communal identification.112 What have we noticed thus far? Strikingly, we can observe the similar motifs in both LALT and Latinx hermeneutical approaches. I, however, want to identify four basic principles that should help and guide the reader about Latinx hermeneutics. First, it is a hermeneutic of suspicion. We are suspicious, not of the Bible, but of those who claim to universally speak on behalf of the Bible.

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As Elsa Tamez points out, the Bible has been used as a weapon of oppression, subjugation of women, economic exploitation, and imperial justification of oppression and colonial rule.113 This suspicion of universalizing claims also comes with the recognition that all biblical interpretations are inherently subjective. The hermeneutical methodologies of the West promise objectivity, but this is an illusion. Latinx hermeneutics does not presume that an interpretation of the Bible, especially by those in the West, is always a final interpretation for all people, at all places, and for all time. Second, it also values and prioritizes the Latinx experience as the “locus theologicus” of hermeneutical reflection. Whether these are identified as paradigms, as in Gonzalez’s case, or understood as experiences of the mujerista, the privileged hermeneutical center is the flesh-and-blood reality of the Latinx reader. For too long, many Latinx scholars have been trained to read the Bible as a White male scholar with questions and concerns that really reflect White male issues of the biblical text. But many of us are not White or male. Our experiences, questions, and contexts differ from an American-European reality. These experiences are not to be eschewed or rejected, but embraced as part of the interpretive process. Third, there is also a recognition that meaning emerges from a critical interaction between the text and the Latinx context. This interaction may have multiple forms and approaches to the text, as Lozada also highlights.114 Or as Elizondo describes, it is a way of looking for “convergence and divergence” between the text and the contemporary church.115 This also means that eisegesis is exegesis, and exegesis is eisegesis. That is, the Latinx identity and experiences are embraced as critical entry points in the exploration of biblical meanings and biblical contexts. We interpret the text from the context of our own lived reality. But we also interpret our lived reality from the context of the text. This is the critical and mutually illuminating hermeneutical dialogue. Fourth, a pneumatic element also exists in biblical interpretation. The Spirit is involved in conscientization, also understood as critically raising awareness of one’s oppressive reality. The Spirit also enables us to learn how to apply the text to a new context. And the Spirit is the facilitator of hearing the text in our own native language as the Pentecost narrative in Acts reveals. Through the Spirit, biblical interpretation emerges and speaks to the condition of the reader’s context. Various Latinx approaches differ in their selected dialogue partners, perspective of the biblical text, and orientations. This is so because there is

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no such thing as a monolithic Latinx culture or experience. It is thus understandable why there cannot be solely a “Latinx” biblical approach. Although there are similar motifs and themes, there are a variety of approaches and lenses to reading the Bible just as there are a variety of Latinx experiences. Lozada even asserts that “there is no single correct way of practicing Latino/a biblical interpretation” given that it has “taken multifarious forms, has focused on different issues and texts, and has drawn from a variety of theoretical positions, sources, methods, and reading strategies.”116 How, then, will this study interpret the biblical text under the umbrella of a “Latinx” perspective? What is my Latino hermeneutic? Perhaps the best way to answer this question is to also identify my own contextualized identity—the person who dialogues with the biblical text.

Reading the Ancient World Through My Latino Eyes I am a Chicano. I was raised in Southern California where my grandmother spoke to me in Spanish and my parents in English. Growing up in the inner city of South-East San Diego, the realities of gang violence, poverty, homelessness, graffiti, and run-down public schools were the norm. This was my gangster’s paradise that I called home. But I also joined the Christian faith through a small Assemblies of God Pentecostal church, which provided the foundation to my spiritual formation. Spirt-­ baptized at seventeen years old, I thought I was called to be a pastor. After graduating high school, I enrolled at Latin American Bible Institution (now LABI College) in La Puente, California. I was eventually expelled, and those pastoral ministry hopes changed. The only good thing that came from my experiences at this Bible college was that I met my wife, Jessica Baez (now Jessica Estrada), and I became clearer in my calling—a commitment to interpret the Bible that was not solely based on spiritual intuitions, opinions of charismatic leaders, or unquestioned views from elders. I grew up hearing many so-called ministers spit on a mic and claim what they said was divinely inspired, only later realizing that much was non-sense. Think of Sammy Rodriguez or other self-appointed Pentecostals who tried to convince many Latinos/as to vote for Donald Trump. I therefore can neither deny my Pentecostal heritage nor community, given that this experience, as painful as it was, has become my story. My

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identity is rooted in both a theological tradition and contextual reality, and both of these aspects are actively involved in my exegesis of the text.117 Furthermore, my pneumatic experiences and traditions do not permit me to fully embrace a biblical methodology that solely focuses upon how the reader understands the text. I have experienced too many readings of the Bible that used spiritual intuitions or unchallenged cultural ideologies that justify oppression, political ideologies, patriarchy, misogyny, and political candidates that are oppressive to the Latin American immigrant experience. Having a Latinx identity does not make one immune from reading the Bible in an oppressive manner. As Freire notices, even the colonized can take the mindset and values of the oppressor.118 This approach therefore has a specific concern with the Greco-Roman context, language, and ethnocultural world. My resistance to the traditional critical methods is not as strong as others for this simple reason. When I rummage through ancient texts and contexts, these are liberative experiences because they open new possibilities to read the text, but not in an “objective” manner as supposed by the Western guild. Instead, in a manner that frees and challenges my ethnocentric assumptions, prejudices, biases, and distortions. This is a conscientizing experience, the raising of my critical awareness through the identification with the people and culture of the ancient world. It forces me to have an ethnic dialogue with the biblical text. In my ethnic dialogue with the ancient ethnic writers, I become aware of myself when I observe how different I am from them. Like Jean-Pierre Ruiz, I do not presume a hermeneutic of correspondence or correlation to my context.119 That will do a disservice to the world of the text and its context that does not perfectly match with mine. Additionally, this is not to presume that this ethno-critical and dialogical approach can ever lead me to an objective reading of the text. Nor have I bought into the delusion that the text can be historically interpreted once and for all. Studying the ancient world is an exploration of imaginative possibilities gathered from textual, archeological, and cultural evidence. Failing to concern oneself with the literary context, language, and ancient Greco-Roman world of the biblical text is of serious disservice to the text and the communities in which they were birthed. However, my utilization of these tools is not to serve the interests of the academy but to dethrone these so-called objective readings, point out their weaknesses, demonstrate why they are misreading the text, and expose their dehumanizing implications. I learned how to use the tools of the trade in order to denounce the trade. As a ministerial colleague reminds me, “Sometimes

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we have to pet the lion before we kill it.”120 That is our aim whenever we criticize and challenge interpretations that have justified the status quo or arrogantly presumed to be the final reading of the Bible for all people. This leads me to my second point; my deductions emerge and differ from White readings because I also draw from another reservoir—the Latinx context and Pentecostal ethos of my tradition. This “locus theologicus” of hermeneutical reflection enables me to reread the biblical text with a sensitivity to those in the margins, especially those in between two cultures and identities.121 I concern myself with representations of the “other” in the ancient world because this experience of “otherness” marked and shaped my life as a Chicano in a predominantly White academic guild. My experiences as an ethnic minority have also shaped the way I observe and understand race relations, hostilities, xenophobia, and racial rhetoric against people who have brown or dark skin. I approach the world of the biblical text from the interests and questions of my contextual reality, which has been marginalized, overlooked, despised simply for being born with brown skin, having Mexican ancestral origin, and unable to correctly speak both my native tongue and colonized language. My investigations of the biblical text, questions of the ancient contexts, or explorations of the ancient world flow from my Latino questions, experiences, and interest of my own Chicano context and spiritual tradition. When parallels or references to the Latinx context, community, or history are not mentioned, this does not suppose that nothing is filtering my questions and interpretation. This study understands Latinx interpretation as a methodology in which I, as a conscientized Latino reader, participate in the re-creation of meaning from the Bible, through the divine maternal Spirit, in dialogue with Latinx experiences and scholars, and engagement with the Greco-Roman world. My Latino approach therefore does not suppose that the desire to read the text with a concern for the context of the ancient world is to be eschewed. Even Segovia recognizes that “the historical impulse of traditional criticism—its sense of the distance of the text—should not be bypassed.”122 And likewise, Gutierrez also highlights the need for works on the historical, social, and literary form of the Bible, which will enable the reader to become familiar with the text and prevent one from manipulating the Bible.123 My approach thus reflects my identity as a Chicano who speaks English as a first language but is culturally and racially Mexican. Not only is the Western academy part of my academic formation and identity, so is the Latinx culture, and theological tradition. It is the Spirit who

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brings within my being the very words and wisdom of my Latin American and Latinx scholarly tradition and experience. I cannot deny this dual identity—a mestizo identity—where the product of my scholarship is also a contentious ground that reflects the clashing violence of Euro-American and Latinx experiences, questions, methodologies, and interpretations. The Spirit is involved in my interpretations and exploration of possible meanings of the text. She reminds me of my Latinx tradition and voices of my community. I hear Gutierrez’s exhortation to read the Bible with the experiences of the poor and oppressed. I affirm with Croatto that the text is open and has the potential for new meanings with a liberative hermeneutic of freedom. As Segundo taught me, I approach all interpretations with suspicion, seeking to uncover the ideologies that they support and the oppressive readings they seek to justify and maintain. The counsel of Segovia flows through my blood whenever Eurocentric critics and readings urges me to divest my identity and dehumanize myself in order to read the Bible like they do. Gonzalez reminds me to always read the Bible in Spanish, through the lens and experiences of the Latinx community. And Isasi-Díaz’s words exhort my heart to listen to the interpretations of women, those of my spiritual mothers and sisters, my very own wife and daughters. And all of this, the interpretations of the text, are done with the Latinx students of my classroom, the Latinx churches where I minister, and the Southern California Latinx community I call home. I can no more deny my own context, ethnic identity, and spiritual tradition than I can deny the air I breathe. Pretending to do so is to be an unexamined interpreter—a Euro-American biblical scholar who refuses to acknowledge how their racial identity and social location guide his or her interpretations.

Notes 1. Rudolf Bultmann, “Is Exegesis without Presuppositions Possible?” in New Testament and Mythology and other Basic Writings, ed. Schubert Miles Ogden (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989), 153; Grant Osborn, The Hermeneutical Spiral (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006), 516–518; Anthony Thiselton, New Horizons in Hermeneutics (MI: Zondervan, 1992), 618. 2. By these terms I am referring to a highly individualized, historical, moral, or spiritualized reading that does not dialogue with the cultural and social reality of a Euro-American ethnic identity. See E. Randolph Richards and

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Brandon J.  O’Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2012). 3. Hector Avalos, “Rethinking Latino Hermeneutics: An Atheistic Perspective,” in Latino/a Biblical Hermeneutics: Problems, Objectives, Strategies, ed. Francisco Lozada and Fernando Segovia (Atlanta: SBL, 2014), 59–72; Aquiles Martinez, “U.S.  Hispanic/Latino Biblical Interpretation: A Critique from Within,” Theology Today 68.2 (2011): 134–148. 4. Edwin Aponte and Miguel De La Torre, Introducing Latinx Theologies (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2020), 12–14; Cristobal Salinas Jr., “The Complexity of the ‘x’ in Latinx: How Latinx/a/o Students Relate to, Identify With, and Understand the Term Latinx,” Journal of Hispanic Higher Education 19.2 (2020): 149–168 [esp. 151]. 5. Salvador Vidal-Ortiz and Juliana Martínez, “Latinx Thoughts: Latinidad with an X,” Latino Studies 16 (2018): 384–395 [esp. 391]. 6. Salinas, “The Complexity of the ‘x’ in Latinx,” 165. 7. Martha Gimenez, “Latino/‘Hispanic’—Who Needs a Name? The Case Against a Standardized Terminology,” International Journal of Health Services 19.3 (1989): 557–571. 8. Virgilio Elizondo, Galilean Journey: The Mexican American Promise (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1983), 21. 9. Daniel Carroll R., “Latino/Latina Biblical Interpretation,” in Scripture and Its Interpretation: A Global, Ecumenical Introduction to the Bible, ed. Michael Gorman (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2017), 311; Samuel Escobar, “Liberation Theologies and Hermeneutics,” DTIB (2005): 454–455. 10. Pablo Richard, “Lectura Popular De La Biblia En América Latina: Hermenéutica De La Liberación,” RIBLA 1 (1988): 28–44; Christopher Rowland and Mark Corner, Liberating Exegesis: The Challenge of Liberation Theology to Biblical Studies (KY: Westminster, 1989), 38–41. 11. Neftalí Vélez, “Lectura Bíblica en las CEB’s,” RIBLA 1 (1988): 9–27; Richard, “Interpreting and Teaching the Bible in Latin America,” Interpretation 56.4 (2002): 378–386. 12. See Jeffrey Siker, “Uses of the Bible in the Theology of Gustavo Gutierrez: Liberating Scripture of the Poor,” Biblical Interpretation 4.1 (1996): 40–71; Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2006), 168–171. 13. Gutierrez, Liberation, 3–5. 14. Gustavo Gutierrez, The God of Life (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1991), xvi–xvii. 15. Gustavo Gutierrez, We Drink from our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2003), 34; also Gustavo Gutierrez, Power of the Poor in History (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2004), 4; Gustavo

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Gutierrez, On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1987), xvii–xix; Gutierrez, God of Life, xvi. 16. Gutierrez, Power of the Poor, 4, 18. 17. Gutierrez, Liberation, 24–25. 18. Esa Autero, Reading the Bible across Contexts: Luke’s Gospel, Socio-­ Economic Marginality, and Latin American Biblical Hermeneutics (Leiden: Brill, 2016); Autero, “Reading the Epistle of James with Socioeconomically Marginalized Immigrants in the Southern United States,” Pneuma 39.4 (2017): 504–535. 19. Gutierrez, Liberation, 77. 20. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (UK: Penguin Books, 2017), 22, 44–45, 50. 21. Gutierrez, Liberation, 57. 22. Gutierrez, Liberation, 69. 23. Gutierrez, Liberation, 70. 24. Gutierrez, Own Wells, 53. 25. Gutierrez, Own Wells, 136–137. 26. Severino Croatto, Biblical Hermeneutics: Toward a Theory of Reading as the Production of Meaning (New York: Orbis, 1987), 21. 27. Croatto, Hermeneutics, 80. 28. Croatto, Hermeneutics, 17; Severino Croatto, Exodus: A Hermeneutics of Freedom (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1981), 3. 29. Severino Croatto, “Exegesis of Second Isaiah from the Perspective of the Oppressed: Paths for Reflection,” in Reading from This Place: Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in Global Perspective, ed. Fernando Segovia and Mary Ann Tolbert (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 219. 30. Croatto, Hermeneutics, 60–61. 31. Croatto, Exodus, 27. 32. Croatto, Hermeneutics, 60–65. 33. Croatto, “Exegesis of Second Isaiah,” 220. 34. Croatto, Hermeneutics, 67; Exodus, 2. 35. Croatto, Hermeneutics, 66–68; Exodus, 11. 36. Croatto, Exodus, 11. 37. Croatto, Exodus, 11. 38. Croatto, Exodus, 21, 39–44, 52. 39. Juan Luis Segundo, Liberation of Theology (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002), 7. 40. Segundo, Liberation, 94. 41. Segundo, Liberation, 8. 42. Segundo, Liberation, 47. 43. Segundo, Liberation, 8. 44. Segundo, Liberation, 9.

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45. Segundo, Liberation, 9. 46. Segundo, Liberation, 97. 47. Segundo, Liberation, 116. 48. Segundo, Liberation, 116. 49. Segundo, Liberation, 118. 50. Segundo, Liberation, 121, 125. 51. Segundo, Liberation, 120. 52. Néstor Medina, “The Future of Liberation Theologies: Rumors of Their Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated,” Toronto Journal of Theology 23.1 (2007): 24–28. 53. Medina, “The Future of Liberation Theologies,” 24–28. 54. See João B. Chaves, Evangelicals and Liberation Revisited (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2013). 55. Osvaldo Vena, “El Sur También Existe: A Proposal for Dialogue between Latin American and Latino/a Hermeneutics,” in Latino/a Biblical Hermeneutics: Problems, Objectives, Strategies, ed. Francisco Lozada and Fernando Segovia (Atlanta: SBL, 2014), 303. 56. Francisco Lozada, Toward a Latino/a Biblical Interpretation (Atlanta: SBL, 2017), 38. 57. Aponte and De La Torre, Latinx, 78–80. 58. Fernando Segovia, Decolonizing Biblical Studies: A View from the Margins (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2000), 10. 59. Segovia, Decolonizing, 30; Segovia, “And They Began to Speak in Other Tongues: Competing Modes of Discourse in Contemporary Biblical Criticism,” in Readings from This Place: Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in the United States, ed. Fernando Segovia and Mary Ann Tolbert (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 29. 60. Segovia, Decolonizing, 30 61. Segovia, Decolonizing, 31. 62. Segovia, “And They Began to Speak in Other Tongues,” 30. 63. Fernando Segovia, “Pedagogical Discourse and Practices in Cultural Studies: Toward a Contextual Biblical Pedagogy,” in Teaching the Bible: The Discourses and Politics of Biblical Pedagogy, ed. Fernando Segovia and Mary Ann Tolbert (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1998), 140. 64. Segovia, Decolonizing, 32. 65. Segovia, Decolonizing, 7. 66. Segovia, Decolonizing, 31. 67. Segovia, “Pedagogical,” 141. 68. Fernando Segovia, “Introduction: Approaching Latino/a Biblical Criticism: A Trajectory of Visions and Missions,” in Latino/a Biblical Hermeneutics: Problems, Objectives, Strategies, ed. Francisco Lozada and Fernando Segovia (Atlanta: SBL, 2014), 1.

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69. Fernando Segovia, “Advancing Latino/a Biblical Criticism: Visions and Missions for the Future,” in Latino/a Biblical Hermeneutics: Problems, Objectives, Strategies, ed. Francisco Lozada and Fernando Segovia (Atlanta: SBL, 2014), 324. 70. Segovia, “Advancing,” 361–362. 71. Segovia, Decolonizing, 41. 72. Segovia, Decolonizing, 43. 73. Segovia, Decolonizing, 47. 74. Segovia, Decolonizing, 49. 75. Segovia, Decolonizing, 50–51; Croatto, Hermeneutics, 67. 76. Justo Gonzalez, Mañana: Christian Theology from a Hispanic Perspective (Nashville: Abingdon, 1990), 85–87. 77. Justo Gonzalez, Santa Biblia: The Bible through Spanish Eyes (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 14. 78. Gonzalez, Santa, 16–17. 79. Gonzalez, Santa, 19. 80. Gonzalez, Santa, 27–28, 32. 81. Gonzalez, Santa, 32. 82. Gonzalez, Santa, 40. 83. Gonzalez, Santa, 61. 84. Gonzalez, Santa, 75. 85. Gonzalez, Santa, 80. 86. Gonzalez, Santa, 93. 87. Gonzalez, Santa, 103. 88. Gonzalez, Santa, 109. 89. Gonzalez, Santa, 117. 90. Gonzalez, Santa, 21. 91. Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Mujerista Theology (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1996), 61. 92. Isasi-Diaz, Mujerista, 160. 93. Isasi-Diaz, Mujerista, 3, 37, 77. 94. Isasi-Diaz, Mujerista, 41. 95. Isasi-Diaz, Mujerista, 64–66. 96. Isasi-Diaz, Mujerista, 150. 97. Isasi-Diaz, Mujerista, 158. 98. Isasi-Diaz, Mujerista, 155. 99. Isasi-Diaz, Mujerista, 159. 100. Isasi-Diaz, Mujerista, 160. 101. Isasi-Diaz, Mujerista, 38. 102. Isasi-Diaz, Mujerista, 66. 103. Isasi-Diaz, Mujerista, 95. 104. Isasi-Diaz, Mujerista, 92–99. 105. Isasi-Diaz, Mujerista, 158.

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106. Efrain Agosto, “What Does it Mean to Be a Latino/a Biblical Critic? A Latino Pentecostal Perspective, with Reflections on the Future,” in Latino/a Biblical Hermeneutics: Problems, Objectives, Strategies, ed. Francisco Lozada and Fernando Segovia (Atlanta: SBL, 2014), 45. 107. Ahida Pilarski, “A Latina Biblical Critic and Intellectual: At the Intersection of Ethnicity, Gender, Hermeneutics, and Faith,” in Latino/a Biblical Hermeneutics: Problems, Objectives, Strategies, ed. Francisco Lozada and Fernando Segovia (Atlanta: SBL, 2014), 231–248. 108. Eric Barreto, “Reexamining Ethnicity: Latinas/os, Race, and the Bible,” in Latino/a Biblical Hermeneutics: Problems, Objectives, Strategies, eds. Francisco Lozada and Fernando Segovia (Atlanta: SBL, 2014), 75. 109. Alejandro Botta, “What Does it Mean to Be a Latino Biblical Critic?” in Latino/a Biblical Hermeneutics: Problems, Objectives, Strategies, ed. Francisco Lozada and Fernando Segovia (Atlanta: SBL, 2014), 116–117. 110. Miguel De La Torre, Reading the Bible from the Margins (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2002), 6. 111. Jacqueline Hidalgo, Latina/o/x Studies and Biblical Studies (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 4, 17, 75; Jacqueline Hidalgo, Revelation in Aztlan: Scriptures, Utopias, and the Chicano Movement (New York: Palgrave, 2016), 21. 112. Hidalgo, Revelation, 4–5; Jacqueline Hidalgo, “Reading from No Place: Toward a Hybrid and Ambivalent Study of Scriptures,” in Latino/a Biblical Hermeneutics: Problems, Objectives, Strategies, ed. Francisco Lozada and Fernando Segovia (Atlanta: SBL, 2014), 165–186. 113. Elsa Tamez, “The Bible and the Five Hundred Years of Conquest,” in Voices from the Margin: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World, ed. R. S. Sugirtharajah (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2006), 13–26. 114. Lozada, Toward, 41–110. 115. Elizondo, Galilean, 47. 116. Lozada, Toward, 115. 117. Rodolfo Estrada, “Is a Contextualized Hermeneutic the Future of Pentecostal Readings? The Implications of a Pentecostal Hermeneutic for a Chicano/Latino Community,” Pneuma 37.3 (2015): 350. 118. Freire, Pedagogy, 20–21. 119. Jean-Pierre Ruiz, Reading from the Edges: The Bible & People on the Move (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2011), 7–8. 120. Eli Vega (Youth Director of the Southern Pacific District of the Assemblies of God), La Puente, CA. July 16, 2020. 121. Estrada, “Contextualized,” 351. 122. Segovia, Decolonizing, 11. 123. Gutierrez, God of Life, xvii.

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References Agosto, Efrain. “What Does it Mean to Be a Latino/a Biblical Critic? A Latino Pentecostal Perspective, with Reflections on the Future.” Pages 43–58  in Latino/a Biblical Hermeneutics: Problems, Objectives, Strategies. Edited by Francisco Lozada and Fernando Segovia. Atlanta: SBL, 2014. Aponte, Edwin and Miguel De La Torre. Introducing Latinx Theologies. Maryknoll: Orbis, 2020. Autero, Esa. Reading the Bible across Contexts: Luke’s Gospel, Socio-Economic Marginality, and Latin American Biblical Hermeneutics. Leiden: Brill, 2016. ———. “Reading the Epistle of James with Socioeconomically Marginalized Immigrants in the Southern United States.” Pneuma 39.4 (2017): 504–535. Avalos, Hector. “Rethinking Latino Hermeneutics: An Atheistic Perspective.” Pages 59–72 in Latino/a Biblical Hermeneutics: Problems, Objectives, Strategies. Edited by Francisco Lozada and Fernando Segovia. Atlanta: SBL, 2014. Barreto, Eric. “Reexamining Ethnicity: Latinas/os, Race, and the Bible.” Pages 73–93  in Latino/a Biblical Hermeneutics: Problems, Objectives, Strategies. Edited by Francisco Lozada and Fernando Segovia. Atlanta: SBL, 2014. Botta, Alejandro. “What Does it Mean to Be a Latino Biblical Critic?.” Pages 107–119  in Latino/a Biblical Hermeneutics: Problems, Objectives, Strategies. Edited by Francisco Lozada and Fernando Segovia. Atlanta: SBL, 2014. Bultmann, Rudolf. “Is Exegesis without Presuppositions Possible?.” Pages 145–154 in New Testament and Mythology and other Basic Writings. Edited by Schubert Miles Ogden. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989. Carroll, R.  Daniel. Latino/Latina Biblical Interpretation. In Scripture and Its Interpretation: A Global, Ecumenical Introduction to the Bible, ed. Michael Gorman. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker. 2017. Chaves, João B. Evangelicals and Liberation Revisited. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2013. Croatto, Severino. Exodus: A Hermeneutics of Freedom. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1981. ———. Biblical Hermeneutics: Toward a Theory of Reading as the Production of Meaning. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1987. ———. “Exegesis of Second Isaiah from the Perspective of the Oppressed: Paths for Reflection.” Pages 219–236 in Reading from This Place: Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in Global Perspective, Vol. 2. Edited by Fernando Segovia and Mary Ann Tolbert. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995. De La Torre, Miguel. Reading the Bible from the Margins. Maryknoll: Orbis, 2002. Elizondo, Virgilio. Galilean Journey: The Mexican American Promise. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1983. Escobar, Samuel. “Liberation Theologies and Hermeneutics.” In Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible. Edited by Kevin Vanhoozer, 454–455. MI: Baker Academic, 2005.

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Estrada, Rodolfo. “Is a Contextualized Hermeneutic the Future of Pentecostal Readings? The Implications of a Pentecostal Hermeneutic for a Chicano/ Latino Community.” Pneuma 37.3 (2015): 341–355. Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. UK: Penguin Books, 2017. Gimenez, Martha. “Latino/‘Hispanic’—Who Needs a Name? The Case Against a Standardized Terminology.” International Journal of Health Services 19.3 (1989): 557–571. Gonzalez, Justo. Mañana: Christian Theology from a Hispanic Perspective. Nashville: Abingdon, 1990. ———. Santa Biblia: The Bible through Spanish Eyes. Nashville: Abingdon, 1996. Gutierrez, Gustavo. On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1987. ———. The God of Life. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1991. ———. We Drink from Our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People. Maryknoll: Orbis, 2003. ———. Power of the Poor in History. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2004. ———. A Theology of Liberation. Maryknoll: Orbis, 2006. Hidalgo, Jacqueline. “Reading from No Place: Toward a Hybrid and Ambivalent Study of Scriptures.” Pages 165–186  in Latino/a Biblical Hermeneutics: Problems, Objectives, Strategies. Edited by Francisco Lozada and Fernando Segovia. Atlanta: SBL, 2014. ———. Revelation in Aztlan: Scriptures, Utopias, and the Chicano Movement. New York: Palgrave, 2016. ———. Latina/o/x Studies and Biblical Studies. Leiden: Brill, 2020. Isasi-Díaz, Ada María. Mujerista Theology. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1996. Lozada, Francisco and Fernando Segovia. Latino/a Biblical Hermeneutics: Problems, Objectives, Strategies. Atlanta: SBL, 2014. Lozada, Francisco. Toward a Latino/a Biblical Interpretation. Atlanta: SBL, 2017. Martinez, Aquiles. “U.S.  Hispanic/Latino Biblical Interpretation: A Critique from Within.” Theology Today 68.2 (2011): 134–148. Medina, Néstor. “The Future of Liberation Theologies: Rumors of Their Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated.” Toronto Journal of Theology 23.1 (2007): 23–34. Osborn, Grant. The Hermeneutical Spiral. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006. Pilarski, Ahida. “A Latina Biblical Critic and Intellectual: At the Intersection of Ethnicity, Gender, Hermeneutics, and Faith.” Pages 231–248  in Latino/a Biblical Hermeneutics: Problems, Objectives, Strategies. Edited by Francisco Lozada and Fernando Segovia. Atlanta: SBL, 2014. Richard, Pablo. “Lectura Popular De La Biblia En América Latina: Hermenéutica De La Liberación.” Revista de Interpretación Bíblica Latinoamericana 1 (1988): 28–44.

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———. “Interpreting and Teaching the Bible in Latin America.” Interpretation 56.4 (2002): 378–386. Richards, E. Randolph and Brandon J. O’Brien. Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2012. Rowland, Christopher and Mark Corner. Liberating Exegesis: The Challenge of Liberation Theology to Biblical Studies. Kentucky: Westminster, 1989. Ruiz, Jean-Pierre. Reading from the Edges: The Bible & People on the Move. Maryknoll: Orbis, 2011. Salinas, Cristobal, Jr. “The Complexity of the ‘x’ in Latinx: How Latinx/a/o Students Relate to, Identify With, and Understand the Term Latinx.” Journal of Hispanic Higher Education 19.2 (2020): 149–168. Segovia, Fernando. “And They Began to Speak in Other Tongues: Competing Modes of Discourse in Contemporary Biblical Criticism.” Pages 1–32  in Readings from This Place: Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in the United States, Vol 1. Edited by Fernando Segovia and Mary Ann Tolbert. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995. ———. “Pedagogical Discourse and Practices in Cultural Studies: Toward a Contextual Biblical Pedagogy.” Pages 137–167  in Teaching the Bible: The Discourses and Politics of Biblical Pedagogy. Edited by Fernando Segovia and Mary Ann Tolbert. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1998. ———. Decolonizing Biblical Studies: A View from the Margins. Maryknoll: Orbis, 2000. ———. “Advancing Latino/a Biblical Criticism: Visions and Missions for the Future.” Pages 323–363  in Latino/a Biblical Hermeneutics: Problems, Objectives, Strategies. Edited by Francisco Lozada and Fernando Segovia. Atlanta: SBL, 2014a. ———. “Introduction: Approaching Latino/a Biblical Criticism: A Trajectory of Visions and Missions.” Pages 1–39 in Latino/a Biblical Hermeneutics: Problems, Objectives, Strategies. Edited by Francisco Lozada and Fernando Segovia. Atlanta: SBL, 2014b. Segundo, Juan Luis. Liberation of Theology. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002. Siker, Jeffrey. “Uses of the Bible in the Theology of Gustavo Gutierrez: Liberating Scripture of the Poor.” Biblical Interpretation 4.1 (1996): 40–71. Tamez, Elsa. “The Bible and the Five Hundred Years of Conquest.” Pages 1–11 in Voices from the Margin: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World. Edited by R. S. Sugirtharajah. Maryknoll: Orbis, 2006. Thiselton, Anthony. New Horizons in Hermeneutics. MI: Zondervan, 1992. Vélez, Neftalí. “Lectura Bíblica en las CEB’s.” Revista de Interpretación Bíblica Latinoamericana 1 (1988): 9–27.

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Vena, Osvaldo. “El Sur También Existe: A Proposal for Dialogue between Latin American and Latino/a Hermeneutics.” Pages 297–319 in Latino/a Biblical Hermeneutics: Problems, Objectives, Strategies. Edited by Francisco Lozada and Fernando Segovia. Atlanta: SBL, 2014. Vidal-Ortiz, Salvador and Juliana Martínez. “Latinx Thoughts: Latinidad with an X.” Latino Studies 16 (2018): 384–395.

CHAPTER 3

Race and Representation

The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems. When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. —President of the United States, Donald Trump (Donald Trump, “Donald Trump Presidential Campaign Announcement,” June 16, 2015, Trump Tower, New York, C-SPAN Video, 57:08, https:// www.c-­span.org/video/?326473-­1/ donald-­trump-­presidential-­campaign-­announcement)

If our only understanding of Mexicans would come through the filter of Donald Trump’s Twitter feed or political speeches, how would we understand this racial group? We probably would not assume they are like “us.” As described in his presidential announcement speech on June 16, 2015, Mexicans are problematic people, and their problems are different from “our” problems. Trump repeatedly tells the crowd in the same presidential announcement speech, “They’re not sending you … [pointing to the crowd] They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us.” But who is the “you” to whom Trump was referring to in his speech? Simply, it was his © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Galvan Estrada III, A Latino Reading of Race, Kinship, and the Empire, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20305-3_3

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supporters, the Americans cheering his name and waving banners. He was pointing to the people he paid to fill the New York hotel lobby to put on his political show. According to Trump, Mexicans are different from Americans. They are the drug dealers, criminals, and rapists. They are not like “us” Americans who live on this side of the border. In fact, within the same speech Trump also suggests that people from the Middle East are also coming from the southern border. Dark-skinned people are thus grouped together and portrayed as hostile people who are flooding the border and attempting to enter the U.S. Trump’s representation of Mexicans did not end with his candidacy speech. Throughout his presidency, he continued to create negative representations of the Latinx people. This representation extended to their undocumented children living in the U.S. under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) executive order signed by President Obama in 2012. Trump describes these children as being “far from ‘angels’” but “very tough, hardened criminals.”1 He also characterizes the country of Mexico as an “abuser” that is always “taking but never giving” from the U.S. As Trump puts it, Mexico allows for the “invasion” of the U.S. by “drug dealers, cartels, human traffickers, coyotes and illegal immigrants.”2 Trump also referred to El Salvador, Honduras, Haiti, and various African nations as “s*hole countries” when efforts were being made to end the Temporary Protection Status policy in January 2018. The one country that Trump does not portray in such a manner when discussing immigration was Norway, a country of predominantly light-skinned people.3 And let us not forget how Trump portrayed the thousands of migrant families seeking asylum as a caravan, calling them “stone cold criminals.”4 This portrayal of Latin American people, especially Mexicans, was able to stir the crowds and galvanize those who supported Trump’s presidency. But most strikingly, these comments are not solely prejudicial descriptions, the Mexican identity is created and placed in contrast to the American identity. This manner of representing Mexicans and other minoritized Latin American communities is not new. It has been in the American imagination since the early 1800s. William Shaler, a merchant and explorer of the Pacific and Cuba, describes the Californios in 1808 as a “mixed breed” who are “indolent, [of] harmless disposition, and fond of spirituous liquors.”5 He further describes them as “native savages” who would pose a feeble opposition to the Spanish monarchy.6 His depiction of Mexicans as “indolent” is notable. As David Weber explains, Shaler creates

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for American minds an image of Mexicans as lazy alcoholics who lack the industriousness that characterizes an American identity. This representation must be understood in light of the prevalent rise in militant Protestantism, Manifest Destiny, racism, and the industrializing identity of the U.S.7 Shaler was not alone in his creation of the Mexican identity. Rufus Sage’s early contact with Mexicans in 1846 also develops a White supremacist view of Mexicans. Sage was a newspaper writer who visited the Mexicans in Taos of northern New Mexico. He describes them as ignorant, poor, and a “degraded set of beings.”8 He further states that “there are no people on the continent of America, whether civilized or uncivilized, with one or two exceptions, more miserable in condition or despicable in morals than the mongrel race inhabiting New Mexico.”9 Like Trump, Sage would assume that some Mexicans are “good people,” but he concludes that they have “little moral restraint … abandon themselves to vice, and prey upon one another and those around them.”10 That is, they are criminals, thieves, and robbers11—similar to descriptions that emerge in Trump’s political rhetoric. Who are the Mexicans, according to the racial rhetoric of Shaler, Sage, and Trump? Are Mexicans truly rapists, hardened criminals, lazy, alcoholics, and “bad hombres?” And why is there a need to portray them in such a manner? Is it to bolster their own American identity as industrious and superior? Or perhaps create the impression that the Mexicans can be easily conquered, made subservient, and deported? I ask these questions in order to help us recognize that racial rhetoric is never a disinterested claim. In discussing “other” people, that is, those who are not “us,” the portrayals are neither neutral nor objective. Caricatures are created, and the purposes for such representations are multifarious. They may include, but are not limited to, demonizing, dehumanizing, justifying mistreatment, and/ or abusing an entire ethnic group. Or, they may emerge to present themselves as the antithesis of their own identity, thus bolstering a racial supremacist ideology that sees others as inferior, stupid, lazy, immoral, or degenerate. Although this chapter is not about the Mexican identity in the Trumpian American imagination, we do need to think about the New Testament’s portrayal of racial groups. The New Testament also includes descriptions and encounters with many other people. The Gospels include stories of Jesus encountering both Jews and non-Jews. For instance, in the gospel of Mark, a Syrophoenician woman who visits Jesus and the disciples is

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compared to a dog (Mark 7:24–30). In Matthew a Roman centurion who requests healing is characterized as a person of faith in contrast to those of Israel (Matt 8:5–13). And in Luke, the Samaritans are portrayed as unhospitable and unwelcoming (Luke 9:51–55). Most certainly, the Gospels are not ethnographic surveys of various people groups, but they do include encounters with the “other.” What do these generalizations and representations suggest? Do their portrayals suppose that the individual is emblematic of all those who share a similar racial identity? Are the descriptions of the “other” reflective of reality? What purpose does this racial rhetoric serve? Answering these questions is the purpose of this chapter. I will, however, first explain why I bring these questions to the forefront by exploring the contributions of Edward Said on racial representation. I will then highlight how these aspects are evident in Greco-Roman literature by looking at how the Persians, Egyptians, and Germans are represented. I trust this will help identify not only the implications of racial representation but also the multifaceted and underlying motives for portraying people in such manners. There are ethnocentric, identity formation, and misrepresentations that emerge for political, imperial, and cultural purposes. We must be mindful about how people groups are represented in the ancient world, especially when the perspective comes from another writer who does not share a similar ethnic identity. Failing to observe racial representations in literature will lead to an inability to halt, question, and explore the implications that a representation has upon our racial imagination.

Edward Said’s Ethnoracial Representation It was Edward Said who identified the problems of ethnic representation in literature, noticing that the Orient was portrayed and studied as an exotic and haunting place by Western scholars.12 He found political, academic, and cultural reasons for representing “Orientals” in such manner.13 Representations of the Orient also translated to political positions of power and perspectives that viewed the Orient as inferior. Yet Said found that these portrayals also revealed how the European identity aimed to present itself as a superior culture, always having an “upper-hand.”14 He also discovered that embedded in the discourses, the Occident also created its own identity by positioning and distinguishing itself through the eyes of the other: “European culture gained in strength and identity by setting itself off against the Orient as a sort of surrogate and even underground

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self.”15 That is, the European culture was also defining itself in terms of cultural superiority by representing the Orient in an inferior manner. Said found that the Orient was an invented framework for classifying and thinking about people from the East. But does this mean that there is no such thing as an Orient? If everything is a representation, can we ever know anything beyond representations that are created by a European racial imagination? Said calls into question the presumed objective portrayal of the “other” within literature, reminding us that we cannot assume that portrayals are reality. The Orient was in a sense created, or, said another way, “Orientalized.”16 Said explains that these “representations” are not natural depictions: “there is no such thing as a delivered presence, but a re-presence, or a representation.”17 In fact, Said questions if there ever can be a true representation of anything given that it will always be embedded in the “language, culture, institution, and political ambience of the representor.”18 This is so, given that all representations are “implicated, intertwined, embedded, interwoven with many other things besides the ‘truth,’ which is itself a representation.”19 As such, the representations of the Oriental in European culture and scholarship were never “raw, unmediated, or simply objective.”20 How then does one describe or find the true identity of the “other” when it is represented in literature? Is this even possible? Does it always, as Said mentions, include “self-congratulations” when speaking about oneself or “hostility and aggression” when one discusses the “other?”21 Although Said doubts the possibility to know or describe the other, his insights urge us to have caution in uncritically accepting the way people are represented in literature. When we read texts about the “other,” we must keep in mind that we are reading how these ethnoracial groups are being represented from a particular vantage point. The image of the other is always filtered, and thus diluted and distorted, never a true image or accurate portrayal. What are these vantage points and motivations for the representation? Can they be trusted? Said himself would doubt we can trust these representations. We, however, must wrestle with this challenge. Portrayals of the other in literature are being filtered through another subjective reality. As such, we must question the vantage point and identify the possible purpose, motivation, and agenda for such portrayal, especially when they are negative. Often, this questioning of the text, especially the biblical text, is avoided, given the sacredness that the text holds in faith communities. But this is not a question about its sacredness, authority, or truthfulness. It is a

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recognition that human texts, including inspired ones, also include representations that are not neutral but that have another purpose in portraying racial groups in such manner. We must remember that the people represented are not interjecting themselves in the writings or voices of the biblical stories. Someone is speaking on their behalf. Their perspective and understanding are being filtered through another racial vantage point. Positive portrayals need to be identified and highlighted. Negative representations always need to be questioned and viewed with caution. They may not be any more true or reflective of reality than Trump’s Twitter descriptions of Mexicans.

Representations in Greco-Roman Literature Representations are not solely limited to Europeans and the Orient, or early U.S. colonizers and Mexicans. It is found throughout Greco-Roman literature and various images in art, vases, columns, and artifacts. Said indeed notices that classical Greek and Roman writers separated “races, regions, nations, and minds from each other, much of that was self-­serving, and existed to prove that Romans and Greeks were superior to other kinds of people”22 That is, descriptions of various ethnic groups contributed to the racial formation of Greek and Roman identity. What were some of the motivations and agendas in portraying people in such manner? This section will explore some of these dynamics with a specific focus on moral racial tropes, ethnocentric portrayals, and an example on the dangers that occur when we fail to question racial representations. Persians Through Greek and Roman Eyes Edith Hall finds that Aeschylus’s Persians is the “earliest testimony to the absolute polarization in Greek thought of the Hellene and barbarian.”23 One consistent portrayal that emerges in Aeschylus’s Persians and later writers is the association of wealth and its corrupting influence upon the Persian people. The Persians are portrayed as luxurious people who only care about wealth. In one significant dialogue, the queen and mother of Xerxes asks several questions about the Greek people. She inquires on the size of their army, style of combat, and whether they have any wealth in their land. Greece is described as having a formidable army, composed of free men who do not use archers, and live in a land with a “flowing spring of silver.”24 This description places the Persians in an antithetical

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relationship, especially since they use archers and were previously described as a “golden race.”25 Persia is further described as a “vast haven for wealth,” and their defeat is portrayed as a “blow to [their] great wealth.”26 This association with wealth also emerges when the ghost of the dead king Darius is summoned by the queen. During the dialogue, Darius expresses remorse that Xerxes disrespected and ignored the oracles of the Greek gods. Most strikingly, he fears that his “gathered wealth will become plunder” for anyone to take.27 Furthermore, Darius warns Athens and Greece that they should not, like Xerxes, “lust after the wealth of another and so squander [one’s] own prosperity.”28 And before Darius returns to the underworld, he gives the queen some final advice: “give your lives over to pleasure while the sun shines on you still, since wealth is of no use to the dead.”29 These final remarks seem to contradict the earlier concern for his wealth. Why would a dead king worry about riches that he cannot use in the afterlife? Does the desire for wealth trouble the Persians in death? It does from Aeschylus’s perspective. Darius’s statement suggests that the only thing Persians care about is money, even when they are no longer living. It must be noted that this dialogue is presented from a Greek perspective, and no Greek person emerges in this tragedy. Wealth is utilized as a trope in order to describe Persian vanity and greed. By making this association, it suggests that their downfall could be attributed to their ambitious desire for material gain and luxury. Defeating the Persians is thus akin to destroying their prosperity and greed, which could also be construed as a Greek moral victory. This is not to suggest that all Persian representations were uniform and negative. Herodotus’s description of the Persians includes praise for their cultural customs. He, however, describes their identity in apophatic language, defining the other in terms of what they are not. Herodotus notes that they neither set up statues or temple altars nor attribute human qualities to their gods. They also do not offer burnt sacrifices, nor make drink offerings, play flutes, wear garlands, use barley meal, or pray for themselves.30 Their very identity, as well as their religious and ceremonial practices, contrast with the Greek way of life. In fact, the Greeks are to understand the Persians in oppositional terms. At the same time, though, Herodotus understands the Persians through his own Greek eyes. The Greek way of life and identity emerges as the standard to measure and define the racially “other.” He portrays the Persians in a manner that would be understandable to the Greeks, which is an ethnocentric way of viewing the other.31

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Herodotus also identifies various Persian customs. According to him, Persians tend to deliberate serious decisions while drunk,32 utilize non-­ Persian clothing,33 and only introduce a son to his father when the son is five years old.34 Herodotus praises these customs.35 He, however, includes a subtle stereotypical description of the Persians as being people who are fascinated with wealth. This is noticeable in his review of various kings and their accomplishments. One particular queen, Nitocritis, had an inscription in her tomb dedicated to future kings. The inscription states that if a future king would ever need money, he should open her tomb and take what he needs. Herodotus mentions that it was King Darius who disturbed her grave. Darius, however, found the tomb empty with another inscription, which said, “if you were not so greedy for money and insatiable, you would not have disturbed the tombs of the dead.”36 While this story is humorous and describes the queen’s wittiness, it also echoes the racial trope of greed, which is evident in Aeschylus’s Persians. Isocrates also associates the Persians with wealth among other things. He believes that due to their wealth they indulge their bodies, and due to their monarchy, they are humble, timid, and bow before mortals.37 He finds it difficult to think that Persians are capable of having a superior military given their way of life, assumed lazy character, political monarchy, and wealth. He also describes them as an “unorganized mob” who have been “taught slavishness.”38 Even the most reputable Persians, as Isocrates supposes, “never live for equality, the common good, or the state.” Instead, they pass their lives “committing outrages” or “playing the slave.” Isocrates is very critical and does not highlight anything positive about Persian culture, political governance, or moral character. They are “corrupted in their natures” and have “souls humbled and timid.”39 The Roman writer Livy also describes the Persians in a similar manner. He echoes a Persian racial representation of luxury and decadence. He describes Darius III coming with a “troop of women and eunuchs” and dressed like a “spoil of war” with all the “purple robes and gold,” which were the “trappings of his own fortune.”40 Perhaps Livy is mocking the Persian Army with this effeminate description of their military? But notice that again that wealth is associated with the Persians, connecting their vanity with a corrupting influence, and having a deleterious effect on the king and people. This representation of the Persians echoes similar portrayals found in Aeschylus’s Persians. What are we to make of this Persian representation in Greek and Roman minds? What are the implications of representing Persians as luxurious or

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the positive portrayal by Herodotus? Erich Gruen does not believe that Aeschylus’s representation of the Persians contributes to racial stereotypes. For example, Gruen notices that when the queen has a vivid dream of two women, one in Dorian clothing and the other in Persian, they are both portrayed as coming from the same lineage. Gruen states, “there is no hint of an ethnic chasm between Greek and Persians”41 Certainly, the dream draws upon the legendary lineage between both groups. But Gruen fails to further point out that in the same dream, the Persians are portrayed as subservient people who live in barbarian land and do not resist Xerxes’s reign. Land is what separates the two women, and this is no minor point given the implications that land has toward ethnic identity formation, stereotypes, and character development.42 The ethnic representation of the Greeks and Persians is not negated simply because of similar ancestry. The Persians are portrayed as people who are easily controlled. This contrasts the Greeks, who fiercely resist Xerxes and do not live in, as Aeschylus describes, barbarian land.43 Wealth continues to emerge as a racial trope in order to critique an entire ethnoracial group’s identity, behavior, and character. This racial representation is recycled from Aeschylus to Livy in order to classify and judge the Persians. Hall even suggests that the Persian identity is placed in contrast to being an egalitarian, austere, and self-disciplined Greek.44 This Persian identity bolsters the Greek self-image and demonstrates that the Persians were no formidable rival. The Greeks certainly created a Persian identity within their literature in order to understand themselves and their differences. This racial representation was not a neutral endeavor but serves to justify their defeat by the Greeks and later by Alexander the Great over king Darius III.  In other words, racial representations support the argument for Greek moral superiority and justify imperial conquest. Yet positive representations by Herodotus highlight another aspect. That is, not all representations are solely utilized to create caricatures of the other; some feature what one values or appreciates. These representations may not be an impartial or neutral observation, but nonetheless they create a positive portrayal that one should not dismiss. This is not to say that they are reliable. Even positive representations must be questioned for they will also emerge from an ethnocentric perspective.

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Egyptians Through Greek and Roman Eyes Herodotus provides an example of an ethnocentric description of the Egyptians. There are various aspects of their culture which he admires. He describes these aspects in such a manner that they are to be understood as antithetical to the Greek way of life, especially Greek gender roles and hygiene. For example, he notes that Egyptian women sell in the market, and the men stay home and weave. Men urinate while sitting down, and women do so while standing up. He also compares their sacrifices, priests, obligations to parents, and writing style that begins from the right to left.45 Egyptian religion is made relatable to the Greek readers when he explains that they celebrate the festival to Dionysus in nearly “all the same ways as the Greeks do,” except for the dancing.46 These are a few cultural customs by way of contrast to the Greeks. Indeed, Herodotus’s portrayal evokes a respect for the Egyptian culture and people. He admits that Egyptians were the first to invent the yearly cycle—a calendar superior to the Greeks. They were also the first to name the gods and create statues, altars, and temples.47 He affirms the Egyptians as the most esteemed and ancient people. He lavishes praise on their culture, people, and way of life. This positive portrayal was highly noticeable and even drew criticism. Herodotus was eventually accused of being a “lover of barbarians” (φιλοβάρβαρός) by Plutarch, especially for esteeming Egyptian piety and justice, and blaming the Greeks for cannibalism.48 Although Strabo comments that Herodotus “talks a great deal of nonsense”49 and believes that Herodotus’s description of the Egyptians is akin to “adding music, or dance movements, or seasoning” to the various accounts, he does agree with Herodotus in some occasions.50 Strabo recognizes that the Egyptians are worthy of respect and affirms that they live in a civil and cultured manner.51 He points to the training of their priests, cultivation of the Nile River, and use of geometry to distinguish personal property.52 Strabo also admires the way Egyptians raise their children.53 Regardless of these observations, though, he repeats the rumor that the Egyptians hold onto barbarous practices in their treatment of foreigners.54 Herodotus’s portrayal of the Egyptians certainly drew later writers to dislike his writings. His representation also portrayed the Egyptians in contrast to the Greek way of life. The apophatic differences are also explained in terms of environment. No matter how flattering Herodotus’s praise appears, we must notice that the Egyptians will always be different

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because they live in a different region. Herodotus reasons that their climate and rivers led to the development of customs and laws that differ from “other men’s laws.”55 The “other,” in this sense, will always be the “other” because the “other” does not live where “we” live. Does this portrayal denote malice or ethnoracial superiority? This representation does not aim to convey this notion. It is simply a way of making the Egyptians understandable for Greek eyes, albeit with an imperfect representation of their culture and identity. Not everyone adopted Herodotus’s portrayal of the Egyptians, or at least attempted to admire them. Sometimes the positive reputation of the Egyptians is also subverted and stolen. Plato proposes that the ancient city in Egypt was established by Athena, not the Egyptian god Neith.56 He retells a story of Greek named Solon whose visit in Egypt was greatly honored. Solon is made aware by an Egyptian priest that the Greeks are the “noblest and best race of mankind.”57 The reason Solon and other Greeks do not know this is due to the ecological calamities that have wiped out their history and records. The Egyptian priest confirms that the Athenians are the “bravest in war,” “most well-ordered” in all their ways, taught the ways of war, and given the noblest constitution.58 Solon’s entire discussion with the Egyptian priest simply serves to bolster the Greek self-image of superiority and autochthony. The Egyptian priest states, So when, at that time, the Goddess had furnished you, before all others, with all this orderly and regular system, she established your State, choosing the spot wherein you were born since she perceived therein a climate duly blended, and how that it would bring forth men of supreme wisdom.59

In this dialogue, the Egyptian priest confirms the Greek myth of ethnoracial superiority as well as the esteemed mythic past that has been lost. Are the Greeks truly superior and more ancient than the Egyptians? Failing to question how the Egyptian priest is utilized to bolster the Greek identity has, in many ways, continued to support the myth that the Egyptians were dependent upon Greek civilization. Martin Bernal has unequivocally demonstrated how ancient Egypt had a major influence upon classical Greece and not the other way around.60 Herodotus even asserts that the Egyptians were the first to develop the names of the gods that the Greeks borrowed.61 While Plato utilizes an Egyptian priest as a mouthpiece to praise the Greeks, at least Herodotus praises the Egyptian identity and does not use it for Greek self-aggrandizement.

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Other Greco-Roman writers also portray the Egyptians from their own ethnocentric vantagepoint. Pomponius Mela asserts that the Egyptians live very different from others, although he admits that they are the oldest of all humans. He adds that they find it sacrilegious to cremate or bury the dead, and they write their letters in the “wrong direction.”62 Gender, worship, and social practices are also perceived to be reversed, echoing similar comments raised by Herodotus.63 The worship of Egyptian gods reflected in Athenaeus, however, takes a negative tone. He recounts a dinner conversation where a guest remarks, You worship the cow, but I sacrifice it to the gods. You hold the eel to be a mighty divinity, we hold it by far the mightiest of dainties. You eat no pork, but I like it very much. You worship the dogs; I beat her when I catch her eating up my best food. Here in our country, it is the custom to have our priests whole, but with you, so it appears, it is the custom to cut off their best parts. If you see a cat in any trouble, you mourn, but I am very glad to kill and skin it. The field mouse has power with you, with me he doesn’t count at all.64

Gruen finds these comments “musing but hardly vitriolic.”65 He does not consider these comparisons anything but a comic lampooning. But it must be noted that there is no respect for the Egyptian deities. Nor does the comparison draw any sense of understanding why the Egyptian holds these views. In a sense, the Greeks are portrayed in a superior position because they do not fear or have reverence for animals that can be beaten, chased, or eaten for breakfast. Juvenal also echoes this critique of Egyptian animal worship, but unlike Athenaeus, he is explicit in his disdain and notes the lack of worship to the god Diana.66 He considers it madness that the Egyptians worship various “monsters,” including crocodiles, snakes, cats, fish, and dogs.67 He also draws upon a mob riot between the Ombi and Tentyra Egyptians as an example of Egyptian inferiority. While describing this riot he mentions that “earth produces humans who are nasty and puny, so any god that takes a look is filled with laughter and loathing.”68 Although Juvenal’s writing is satirical, this does not mean that it cannot be ethnocentric, prejudicial, or racially dehumanizing. The use of one Egyptian riot emerges to stereotypically represent the identity, worship, and customs of an entire people group. His satire criticizes their worship practices for his own enjoyment and humor.

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Egyptians were certainly an ethnoracial group that differed from the Greeks and Romans. Their religious, cultural, and gender norms, as well as their writing style, were unlike that of the Greeks and Romans. Their climate was also different, they treated children differently, and they believed in different gods. How did the Greeks and Romans understand these differences? As we just reviewed with Juvenal, the Egyptian identity and culture is represented in such a manner that it is to be understood in terms of human decline. But on other occasions, difference is not explained in terms of aberrations, superiority, or inferiority. There is admiration of the Egyptians and respect for their culture, way of life, and identity—as we find with Herodotus. The “other” is portrayed in ways that are understandable and with apophatic language. As readers, we must be suspicious of these portrayals in ancient literature, given that the descriptions emerge from an ethnocentric perspective. These representations are always told from a particular vantage point. The vantage point of one’s own ethnoracial group shapes, forms, and guides the probing and representation of the “other” in these literary works. In other words, representation of the “other” is an attempt to understand. But no matter how sincere, though, that representation is limited. It is always in danger of being guided by the esteemed values, views, and beliefs that we hold for ourselves and do not see in others. Germans Through Roman Eyes Tacitus’s Germania was written for a Roman audience in the late first century CE. This was not simply an ethnographic exploration for curiosity’s sake. The Romans had military conflict with the Germans for over two centuries, and these northern neighbors proved difficult to overcome. Tacitus’s portrayal of the German people has another purpose for our contemporary age. It provides us with a deadly example of what happens when we take representations of people groups at face value. It was Tacitus’s Germania that caught the attention of many German humanists in the nineteenth century and the National Socialist movement of the twentieth century. As Christopher Krebs explains, the Germans turned to Tacitus’s portrayal of the Germanic people as their source to justify a foundational myth of ethnoracial superiority and the claim of Nordic descendancy and race. This text was utilized to form the traditions that became “aspects of the völkisch and then National Socialist ideology.”69 Krebs finds it used by figures such as Hans Friedrich Karl Günther, the race expert for

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the Third Reich of the National Socialist regime; Hans Naumann, the first Nazi rector of the University of Bonn; and Heinrich Himmler, the future leader of the Schutzstaffel and main architect of the Holocaust.70 Specifically, the Nuremberg Laws that banned racial intermarriage were developed and inspired by Nazi German readings of Tacitus’s Germania. Krebs also notes that Günther was inspired by Tacitus’s portrayals of the Germans for his own scholarship on the German race, which led Günther to advocate for the purity of the German race. Günther presumed from his reading of Tacitus that the Germans started to decline when they began to racially intermix.71 Tacitus’s representations of the ancient Germans, in a sense, became a tool for the Nazi agenda and propaganda. In fact, Arnaldo Momigliano asserts that Germania should be at the top of the list as one of the “most dangerous books ever written,” given its inspiration for war.72 What was it about this text that inspired the Nazi regime and its racial ideologies in the twentieth century? How did Tacitus’s representation of German origins lead to the justification of the death of millions of Jews? Tacitus begins Germania with a description of the people’s location, separated by the Rhine and Danube rivers.73 He supposes that the Germans are indigenous to their land and have minimally racially mixed with other groups. They are later presented as being autochthones, descended from the god Tuisto, who was born from the earth. Tacitus also explains that the very name “German” was developed by those who were both feared and conquered by them.74 In addition, it was believed that the god Hercules also lived among the Germans. They even consider him the first brave man.75 Tacitus admits that the Germans are “unmixed by intermarriage with other races,” and a “peculiar people and pure, like no one but themselves.”76 He bases this claim on the observation that they have similar bodies, blue eyes, red hair, and have sporadic strength. Other positive aspects about the German culture is their selection of leaders. Their kings are chosen based on lineage, and their warlords are selected because of their courage.77 Influence is gained by the example they provide the community, especially their courage and bravery in battle. Tacitus reveals that the Germans are a close-knit community based on family and kinship bonds. The cultic, family, and gender roles of the Germanic people are admired by Tacitus. Women are esteemed in the sense that their advice is not looked down upon or neglected. They are believed to have a certain uncanny and prophetic sense, and their prayers are considered to contribute to their husbands’ military victories.78 Furthermore, the Germans do not worship the gods like the Greeks or

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Romans by confining them within temples or portraying them with human appearance, although they worship the gods Mercury, Mars, and Hercules.79 They also have a disdain for traitors, deserters, cowards, poor fighters, and sexual perverts. These individuals are given the death penalty.80 In a sense, the Germans are a rural warrior culture and community. They always carry arms, and when they are not in war, they are hunting or doing absolutely nothing. Moreover, Tacitus remarks that the “best and bravest warriors [do] nothing, having handed over the charge of their home, hearth, and estate to the women and the old men and the weakest members of the family.”81 Tacitus also praises German marriage customs for being strict, solely between one man and one woman, and with a few polygamous marriages for the sake of birth rates. He remarks, “They are almost the only barbarians who are content with a wife apiece.”82 There are other various German tribes that Tacitus identifies, some more barbarous than others, but he distinguishes the Germans from other barbarians given that their good customs are better than the laws elsewhere.83 Tacitus also notices that no one indulges more lavishly in feasting and hospitality than the Germans.84 They are also neither astute nor shrewd, but are dull because of perplexing tendency to love idleness and hate quietness at the same time.85 He remarks that some of the German tribes have remarkable courage, a characteristic that resembles Roman discipline.86 In fact, Tacitus admits that they have long plagued the Roman military for over 210 years, with “many losses on each side.”87 Tacitus was not the only one writing about the Germans. Julius Caesar had earlier written about his battles and experience with the Germans and the various tribes. In general, he describes the Germans as courageous people. They are devoted to military activities, hunting, and had high sexual ethics. The men considered it a disgraceful thing to lose their sexual purity before the age of twenty.88 They only honored the gods that they could see, owned no private property, and did not consider it a disgrace to raid their neighbors.89 He also describes the Suebi Germans as the greatest and most warlike of all Germans.90 Other Germanic tribes known as the Usipetes and Tencteri also made contact with Caesar, but Caesar notes that they used deception by pretending to seek peace with the Romans while preparing for war.91 The description of these tribes reflects what Velleius Paterculus later remarks about the entire German people:

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with their great ferocity combine great craft … are a race to lying born, by trumping up a series of fictitious lawsuits, now provoking one another to disputes, and now expressing their gratitude that Roman justice was settling these disputes, that their own barbarous nature was being softened down by this new and hitherto unknown method.92

What should we surmise if we draw solely from Tacitus’s Germania and utilize this text for our racial imagination? We may conclude that the Germans were once founded as a pure race, courageous warriors, descended from the gods, noble and warlike with family values, simple lifestyles, and capable of matching the strength and superiority of the Romans. If we observe some of the broader themes that emerge, the Germans were certainly represented as a racially pure, combative, militaristic people who enjoyed a nomadic lifestyle, and had notable sexual ethics. Others such as Velleius Paterculus do not have such positive esteem but consider them a lying race. However, the positive representations of the Germanic people caught the attention of the twentieth-century German National Socialist movement. As previously mentioned, they drew upon these representations in order to propose that they were originally a pure, superior race, and the true descendants of the German people. Certainly, Tacitus is not responsible for how his work was interpreted by the Nazi Germans, but this does reveal why it is important to notice how people groups are portrayed and represented; as well it is important to understand the motivations for such racial images. Failing to notice the representations of people groups in texts is not just an interpretive mistake; it has grave consequences for real-world race relations. If we presume that negative portrayals of people groups should be taken at face value, what will halt negative adoption of ideas when similar identifications are found in other racial groups? Even more, what will halt the adoption of positive characteristics to one’s own racial group when desirable qualities emerge? We need to be disabused from the notion that representations do not matter or always reflect reality. Uncritically adopting portrayals to oneself or to others can be instruments of oppression that justify violence and dehumanizing perspectives. We must be mindful of this aspect in our own interpretation of people groups in the biblical text. Assuming that texts do not hold the potential to sanction an authoritative and dehumanizing portrayal is a deadly hermeneutic. It is akin to Nazi Germany’s uncritical adoption of the ancient German identity.

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Implications of Racial Representation Do representations touch some real-life reality of the racial group? Or should we dismiss all representations of racial groups solely because they are just that—representations? Said would have us reject all literary representations, but I believe we must explore the possible agendas in such racial rhetoric and representation especially as they relate to understandings of kinship and imperial relations. We need to identify who is speaking on behalf of the other and the motivations for such portrayal. Even when positive comments are mentioned, are they sincerely praising an aspect of an ethnoracial group that is worthy of acknowledgment? Is the ethnoracial group highlighted in order to identify something admirable? Or is the author only praising a particular cultural characteristic, trait, or behavior because it matches with their own standard on what is to be praised? We have just reviewed how representations are utilized for moral racial tropes, contain ethnocentric portrayals, and can be uncritically adopted. Racial representation often serves to legitimize the power of the empire. It can be utilized to understand the differences and similarities between people groups. And one may argue that there can be an element of truth beneath the language. But even if there is, though, we must keep in mind that Greek and Roman writers have a tendency to represent the “other” through the prism of their own eyes. Admiration of the “other” is always done from the perspective of own’s own cultural values and what one deems admirable. This is an important point because the standards by which we judge other racial groups will include our own cultural norms, moral values, gender practices, and religious traditions that define our understanding of what is socially appropriate. These hidden racial transcripts shape how we view the “other.” Yes, there may be a sincere acknowledgment and recognition of a universal virtue that transcends ethnoracial groups. These are the commendable aspirations that all humans seek to achieve and imitate, but we must also critically question the possible reasons why the admiration and positive praises emerge. Does ethnocentrism lurk in the background? Representations, however, were not always clear cut between people groups. In fact, Denise McCoskey points out that although representations project “confidence in defining the Greek and Roman self against the barbarian,” the concept was also “challenged and destabilized.”93 She notices instances when barbarians or other ethnic groups do not hold up to their stereotypical assumptions. There are occasions when Greeks or

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Romans become the “other,” dress like the “other,” or are essentially the “other.” Indeed, Antiphon rejects the assumption that there are essential differences between Greeks and Barbarians, stating, “we are all born with an equally inherent capacity to be both barbarians and Greeks … none of us are distinguishable as barbarians or Greeks.”94 He lists various similarities that all people share, such as the ability to breathe, laugh, cry, hear, see, work, and make laws. He lists these various aspects in order to support the claim that there is no such thing as a distinct barbarian nature.95 Although not all held firmly to Antiphon’s view, I wonder how many contacts he had with the supposedly “barbarian” and if this also enabled him to have a more sympathetic view of the other? Perhaps this is also why Herodotus was also able to identify many positive aspects about various people groups. Representations do matter, differences do emerge, and motivations for such portrayals need to be uncovered and challenged. Hall’s study of Greek tragedy demonstrates that the idea of a “barbarian” was created in order to be a “universal anti-Greek against whom Hellenic—especially Athenian—culture was defined.”96 Greeks were thus portrayed as democratic and egalitarian, while the barbarians as tyrannical, hierarchical, emotional, stupid, cruel, subservient, or cowardly.97 This portrayal, as she argues, is an “exercise in self-definition, for the barbarian is often portrayed as the opposite of the ideal Greek.”98 Hall even notices that Aeschylus’s Persians was the “first unmistakable file in the archive of Orientalism, the discourse by which the European imagination has dominated Asia ever since by conceptualizing its inhabitants as defeated, luxurious, emotional, cruel, and always dangerous.”99 Undeniably, failing to recognize how the “other” is portrayed can lead to the continual recycling of racial tropes for future generations and new people groups.100

Conclusion Representations reveal an author’s embedded racial imagination, providing insights into one’s thinking, how one judges, and how one expects readers to understand themselves in light of the “other.” Uncritical reflections on how ethnic groups are portrayed in literature will lead one to presume that the portrayal is reality. Failing to notice how the “other” is represented will encode one’s imagination with the misleading presumption that the ethnoracial group is exactly as the text asserts. When this ethnic profile is sealed in one’s imagination, it becomes difficult to

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understand deviations, especially when ethnic people live, behave, or socially perform in ways that do not fit one’s preconceived understanding. For example, what if we believe that Trump’s representations of Mexicans or Latin American people are accurate portrayals? What would happen when we encounter a Mexican person who speaks fluent English and owns a home in the suburbs? Would we assume that they work for the Mexican drug cartel? If anything, their presence will disrupt our racial imagination. The Mexican would not fit within our racial profile, and we will seek to explain this reality in another way. Countless times I have encountered people who presume I am the help, a janitor, or sales associate at a Target retail store. While these assumptions at first would anger me, they are now humorous, and I take them as a reflection of the person’s own distorted racial imagination. Perhaps they believe that everything on Twitter about Mexicans is true. Furthermore, failing to see racial portrayals as representations will lead us to assume that these portraits do not have some cultural, hegemonic, political, or in our case, theological interest. It would prevent us from challenging the cultural stereotypes, framework, and perspective of the text. The portrayal of the Persians as luxurious people in Greek and Roman literature reveals that representations serve to justify imperial agendas. It helps explain imperial beliefs when we can observe the racial rhetoric, as in the case of portraying the Persians as luxurious and greedy. Herodotus’s portrayal of the Egyptians was positive, but no matter how flattering, it was essentially limited and based on an ethnocentric perspective that sought to understand the Egyptians for his own readers. The utilization of Germania in modern history reminds us that uncritical acceptance can have a deadly impact upon others. Representation of the Germans found in Tacitus can be utilized to expel foreigners, justify segregation, and develop an imperial ideology with the assumption that they are improving humanity by eradicating mixed races. We must therefore call into question the motivations and interest in portraying racial groups as such. In fact, François Hartog notices that for Herodotus to translate difference, he must utilize the principle of inversion, comparison, analogy, and translation. Inversion is the means of “communicating otherness in a manner that makes it possible to understand.”101 Whenever people are compared, that comparison filters the differences of people through what is already familiar.102 All rhetoric of otherness is basically an operation of translation; it translates what is different and then classifies and names it.103 We, therefore, must remain

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mindful of the way people are portrayed in the biblical text. Racial representations tend to filter our view of the “other,” making sense of their identity, and bolstering our own identity. It also has a potiential to justify dehumanizing views of the “others” or judge them on an ethnocentric baseline. What, then, are the motivations for such representations of ethnic groups within the gospel of John? Are they to coerce, challenge, compel the reader to reevaluate their own identity, or judge another ethnoracial group’s identity? Are they to stimulate the person to rethink and reconsider their assumptions about who they are in light of the other? Or perhaps the focus of the representations is not really about the ethnoracial group or person but about the reader’s own racial assumptions and ideologies that need to be frustrated, questioned, or developed. Possible ways to uncover such motivations and interests may include the following questions: Is the “other” represented in such a way that that representation provides the opportunity to create one’s identity through self-­ aggrandizement? Is the identity of the “other” being described from an ethnocentric perspective, whether done to highlight positive or negative characteristics? Is the “other” being praised, honored, or esteemed for qualities or characteristics that are meant to resonate with the reader? Is the portrayal of the “other” serving a kinship, racial, imperialistic, or political agenda? If I agree with this racial representation, how does this shape my racial imagination of the “other”? What rhetoric does the portrayal truly serve? Such questions should guide our study of people groups in the ancient world, especially the gospel of John and our reading of its prologue. In fact, the next chapter will explore how distinct words such as the “darkness” and “world” reflect particular representations. As we will notice in the following chapters, racial representations are neither neutral nor objective. They serve a particular purpose and must be identified in our study.

Notes 1. Trump, Twitter Post, November 12, 2019, 3:45  a.m., https://twitter. com/realDonaldTrump/status/1194219655717642240. 2. Trump, Twitter Post, June 2, 2019, 4:44 a.m., https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1135150118120939521. 3. Eli Watkins and Abby Phillip, “Trump Decries Immigrants from ‘Shithole Countries’ Coming to US,” Cable News Network, accessed August 28,

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2020, https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/11/politics/immigrants–shithole–countries–trump/index.html. 4. Bart Jansen and Alan Gomez, “President Trump Calls Caravan Immigrants ‘Stone Cold Criminals.’ Here’s What We Know,” USA Today, accessed August 29, 2020, https://www.usatoday.com/story/ news/2018/11/26/president–trump–migrant–caravan–criminals/ 2112846002/. 5. William Shaler, Journal of a Voyage between China and the North-Western Coast of America Made in 1804 (Claremont, CA: Saunders Studio Press, 1935), 59–60. 6. Shaler, Journal of a Voyage, 60. 7. David Weber, “Here Rests Juan Espinosa: Toward a Clearer Look at the Image of the ‘Indolent’ Californios,” Western Historical Quarterly 10, no. 1 (1979): 61–69. 8. Rufus Sage, Scenes in the Rocky Mountains and in Oregon, California, New Mexico, Texas, and the Grand Prairies (Philadelphia: Baird, 1854), 174. 9. Sage, Scenes, 174. 10. Sage, Scenes, 177. 11. Sage, Scenes, 176. 12. Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Random House, 1979), 1. 13. Said, Orientalism, 2, 202–203. 14. Said, Orientalism, 12. 15. Said, Orientalism, 3. 16. Said, Orientalism, 5. 17. Said, Orientalism, 21. 18. Said, Orientalism, 272. 19. Said, Orientalism, 272. 20. Said, Orientalism, 273. 21. Said, Orientalism, 325. 22. Said, Orientalism, 57. 23. Edith Hall, Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self-Definition through Tragedy (New York: Oxford, 2004), 57. 24. Aeschylus, Pers. 231–245. 25. Aeschylus, Pers. 80. 26. Aeschylus, Pers. 250; 710. 27. Aeschylus, Pers. 750. 28. Aeschylus, Pers. 830. 29. Aeschylus, Pers. 850. 30. Herodotus, 1.131–133. 31. François Hartog, The Mirror of Herodotus: The Representation of the Other in the Writing of History (Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1988),

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10; Wilfried Nipple, “The Construction of the ‘Other,’” in Greeks and Barbarians, ed. Thomas Harrison (New York: Routledge, 2002), 284. 32. Herodotus, 1.133. 33. Herodotus, 1.135. 34. Herodotus, 1.136. 35. Herodotus, 1.137. 36. Herodotus, 1.187. 37. Isocrates, Pang. 151. 38. Isocrates, Pang. 150. 39. Isocrates, Pang. 151. 40. Livy, His. 9.17.16. 41. Erich Gruen, Rethinking the Other in Antiquity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), 20. 42. Denise Eileen McCoskey, Race: Antiquity and Its Legacy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 46–49. 43. Aeschylus, Pers. 180. 44. Hall, Inventing, 80. 45. Herodotus, 2.35–2.48. 46. Herodotus, 2.48. 47. Herodotus, 2.4. 48. Plutarch, On the Malice of Herodotus, 857a. 49. Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.52. 50. Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.52–53. 51. Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.3. 52. Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.3. 53. Strabo, Geogr. 17.2.5. 54. Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.19. 55. Herodotus, 2.35. 56. Plato, Tim. 21e. 57. Plato, Tim. 23b. 58. Plato, Tim. 23c–d. 59. Plato, Tim. 24c. 60. Martin Bernal, Black Athena: Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (New Jersey: Rutgers University, 2020). 61. Herodotus, 2.4; 2.7; 2.43; 2.43; 2.46; 2.145. 62. Pomponius Mela, Description of the World, 1.57. 63. Pomponius Mela, Description of the World, 1.58. 64. Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, 7.299e–300b. 65. Gruen, Rethinking, 103. 66. Juvenal, Sat. 15.1. 67. Juvenal, Sat. 15.1. 68. Juvenal, Sat. 15.70.

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69. Christopher Krebs, Most Dangerous Book: Tacitus’s Germania from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich (New York: Norton & Company, 2012), 214–244; Christopher Krebs, “An Innocuous Yet Noxious Text: Tacitus’s Germania,” Historically Speaking 12.4 (2011): 3. 70. Krebs, “Innocuous,” 3. 71. Krebs, Most Dangerous, 229. 72. Arnaldo Momigliano, Studies in Historiography (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 112–113. 73. Tacitus, Germ. 1. 74. Tacitus, Germ. 2. 75. Tacitus, Germ. 3. 76. Tacitus, Germ. 4. 77. Tacitus, Germ. 7. 78. Tacitus, Germ. 8. 79. Tacitus, Germ. 9. 80. Tacitus, Germ. 12. 81. Tacitus, Germ. 15. 82. Tacitus, Germ. 19 83. Tacitus, Germ. 19. 84. Tacitus, Germ. 21. 85. Tacitus, Germ. 15, 22, 45. 86. Tacitus, Germ. 30. 87. Tacitus, Germ. 37. 88. Caesar, Bellum Gallicum, 6.21. 89. Caesar, Bellum Gallicum, 6.21–23. 90. Caesar, Bellum Gallicum, 4.1–4.3. 91. Caesar, Bellum Gallicum, 4.4–4.15. 92. Velleius Paterculus, History of Rome, 2.118.1. 93. McCoskey, Race, 161–162. 94. Antiphon, On Truth, 1364. 95. Antiphon, On Truth, 3647. 96. Hall, Inventing, 5. 97. Hall, Inventing, 2, 17. 98. Hall, Inventing, 1. 99. Hall, Inventing, 99. 100. Hall, Inventing, 99. 101. Hartog, Mirror, 214. 102. Hartog, Mirror, 230. 103. Hartog, Mirror, 237–247.

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References Bernal, Martin. Black Athena: Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization. New Jersey: Rutgers University, 2020. Gruen, Erich. Rethinking the Other in Antiquity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011. Hall, Edith. Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self-Definition through Tragedy. New York: Oxford, 2004. Hartog, François. The Mirror of Herodotus: The Representation of the Other in the Writing of History. Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1988. Jansen, Bart and Alan Gomez. “President Trump Calls Caravan Immigrants ‘Stone Cold Criminals.’ Here’s What We Know.” USA Today. November 26, 2018. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/11/26/president–trump–migrant– caravan–criminals/2112846002/. Krebs, Christopher. “An Innocuous Yet Noxious Text: Tacitus’s Germania.” Historically Speaking 12.4 (2011): 2–4. ———. Most Dangerous Book: Tacitus’s Germania from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich. New York: Norton & Company, 2012. McCoskey, Denise. Race: Antiquity and Its Legacy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Momigliano, Arnaldo. Studies in Historiography. New York: Harper & Row, 1966. Nipple, Wilfried. “The Construction of the ‘Other,’” Pages 278–310  in Greeks and Barbarians. Edited by Thomas Harrison. New York: Routledge, 2002. Sage, Rufus. Scenes in the Rocky Mountains and in Oregon, California, New Mexico, Texas, and the Grand Prairies. Philadelphia: Baird, 1854. Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Random House, 1979. Shaler, William. Journal of a Voyage between China and the North-Western Coast of America Made in 1804. Claremont, CA: Saunders Studio, 1935. Trump, Donald. “Donald Trump Presidential Campaign Announcement.” June 16, 2015. Trump Tower, New  York. C-SPAN Video, 57:08. https://www.c-­span. org/video/?326473-­1/donald-­trump-­presidential-­campaign-­announcement. ———. Twitter Post. June 2, 2019a, 4:44 AM. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1135150118120939521. ———. Twitter Post. November 12, 2019b, 3:45 AM. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1194219655717642240. Watkins, Eli, and Abby Phillip. “Trump Decries Immigrants from ‘Shithole Countries’ Coming to US.” Cable News Network January 12, 2018. https:// www.cnn.com/2018/01/11/politics/immigrants-­shithole-­countries-­trump/ index.html. Weber, David. “Here Rests Juan Espinosa: Toward a Clearer Look at the Image of the ‘Indolent’ Californios.” Western Historical Quarterly 10, no. 1 (1979): 61–69.

CHAPTER 4

The Prologue’s Racialized Reality: John 1:1–18

The prologue of John’s gospel includes the most theologically robust statements in the New Testament. The first words of the gospel, “In the beginning” (John 1:1), urge the reader to recall the creation story found in Genesis 1:1. With this opening, the gospel points readers back to the beginning of all beginnings, making them aware that before Jesus became a human being, he was the preexistent Logos who was God and with God (vv. 1–2). But the prologue includes something more than just a nod to the creation narrative of Genesis or a cosmic portrayal of the Logos. The prologue concerns itself with race—the human race. Humanity (ἄνθρωπος) is described as having the light of the Logos (v. 4). John the testifier is described, not as a Jew or a baptizer, but simply a member of humanity (v. 6), and all humanity is portrayed as recipients of the Logos’s shining presence (v. 9). This general description of humanity can be construed as a cosmic or universal representation, but we should not fail to notice that something else is occurring in the prologue. Within it, people are stereotyped, de-ethnicized, and “othered.” Race seems to have no contributing value to one’s relationship with the Logos. Inversely, the Logos also seems to maintain no privileged relationship with any one racial group. The prologue’s symbolic language also portrays the Logos in conflict and in relation to people. Darkness is not solely a neutral character or simply the absence of light. It is personified and emerges in a violent reaction to the presence of the Logos. The world also does not solely refer to the universe at large or a setting to the drama but is also portrayed as being © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Galvan Estrada III, A Latino Reading of Race, Kinship, and the Empire, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20305-3_4

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ignorant of the Creator. The Logos also journeys to his own people who should have welcomed and received him, but they do not. John the Baptist and Moses emerge to create and contrast the identity of the Logos. These characters—the darkness, world, people, John the Baptist, and Moses— are not neutrally portrayed in the prologue. They respond, react, or differ from the very identity of the Logos. But not everything is racially negative. The only ones who respond in a positive manner in the prologue are those who beheld the glory of the Logos and received the Logos. The Logos positively reacts to those who receive him, yet this reaction and its benefits are woven in racial imagery. The Logos authorizes the creation of a new family, a community of people who are genealogically in a divine kinship relation with God and no longer defined by a human apical ancestor. All of these portrayals, either subtly or overtly, raise for the readers sets of questions about racial representation, such as, “Who are these people? Why are they portrayed in this manner? Why create, mask, and subvert their identities?” Indeed, Fernando Segovia finds that the prologue constructs for readers an extreme “othering” where people are not only outsiders, but enemies.1 This rhetoric, as Segovia notices, considers both Jews and Gentiles as people who stand in darkness with their ethnic identities providing no immediate benefits.2 We must remember that representations are not neutral affairs. As I argue, the representations in the prologue serve to contrast, create, or deconstruct the racial identity of people groups. I thus want to focus within this chapter on those who are portrayed with symbolic language, those hidden in the rhetoric and subtly mentioned in the discourse. This chapter will raise more questions than it answers. In fact, my hope is that this initial exploration on the rhetoric and racial representations found in the prologue will set up for the reader the discussions that will later emerge in the following chapters. These representations, as I propose, contribute to the gospel’s racial rhetoric. And since these representations are included in the prologue, in this sense, the narrator filters the readers’ racial imagination by influencing how they are to look at ethnic groups who will later emerge in the gospel. Through the prologue, readers are to view the various people who emerge in the gospel not as they are, or as they reveal themselves, but as the narrator represents them for their literary engagement. This is a key point we cannot overlook.

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Purpose of the Prologue First, I will give some brief comments on the nature and purpose of the prologue. The gospel’s opening verses are viewed by many scholars to be the prologue of the gospel. Prologues aim to communicate more than just the start of a story. Although the literary boundaries of the Johannine prologue are absent in early manuscripts,3 the Roman writer Quintilian reminds us that the very first words in rhetoric are “designed as an introduction to the subject on which the orator has to speak.”4 Likewise, Dionysius of Halicarnassus suggests that the opening words of a speaker are very important and should not be random.5 The introduction, as Dionysius claims, ought to be the summary of the speaker’s main points.6 We also find in Euripides’s Ion an introduction to the story and how Ion was an abandoned child of Apollo but later became the founder of the Greek cities of Asia.7 Prologues were no small matter. Ancient rhetoric and Greek drama recognized the value of the speaker’s first words. Certainly, scholars agree that the Johannine prologue gives the reader a certain set of expectations by introducing several themes that will emerge.8 In addition to setting up expectations and giving the reader a preview, prologues primarily shape how we are to interpret the unfolding drama.9 This is why these opening words are of such importance. We are given a hermeneutical framework for understanding and interpreting the events the narrator will later unveil. That is, before anyone shows up on the scene, encounters, or speaks to Jesus, the prologue has already shaped the reader’s racial imagination.

John 1:4–5: Darkness as an Agent of the Empire The opening words of the prologue do not portray the Logos as an impersonal being who fills the universe or as a rational principle that we find in Greek thought.10 The Logos is a relational being who also reflects many descriptions of wisdom and the Torah in Jewish literature.11 Yet we also find something more nuanced in these opening verses. The divine Logos in 1:5 emerges as the “light” that “shines” in the darkness. This is not solely an abstract idea; the symbolic language points to a reality grounded in the story that is to unfold in the gospel. The language points to an activity and encounter of the Logos with people. More specifically, it summarizes Jesus’s public engagement as the light and life of humanity.12 Throughout the gospel, Jesus describes himself as the “light” that has

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come into the world to bring judgment, expose humanity’s evil deeds, and draw people out of darkness.13 In other words, this opening description of the prologue also anticipates conflict with people—but which people? Who is representative of the darkness, and what is their relationship with the Logos? The Logos is the light that “shines” in the darkness and the darkness fails to “overcome” (κατέλαβεν) the light (v. 5). There is much difficulty in translating “overcome” (καταλαμβάνω). It could refer to “seize with a hostile intent” or could be understood in terms of an intellectual apprehension, such as to “understand, grasp, or find.”14 In Spanish, the verse is translated as “las tinieblas no la recibieron,” which conveys a lack of hospitality. Others translate κατέλαβεν as “apagar,” “prevalecer,” or “extinguir,” which denotes some conflict or hostility.15 Alvin Padilla proposes that this term points to a general lack of understanding, especially since many within the gospel fail to understand the significance of Jesus’s miracles.16 Undoubtedly, the ambiguity of κατέλαβεν presents some difficulty, but it is not a coincidence that the next time this term occurs is when a woman is about to be stoned and when Jesus speaks about his pending death. Throughout the gospel, κατέλαβεν denotes a hostile interaction and engagement.17 This suggests that κατέλαβεν is to be understood as the darkness’ attempt to suffocate and extinguish the presence of the Logos.18 But who is the “darkness” who reacts to Jesus in this manner? Juan Mateos and Juan Barreto suggest that the darkness refers to more than Jesus’s problems with the religious leaders. They consider the darkness as an agent of death and the “ideologia de todo sistema de poder que impide al hombre realizar en sí mismo el proyecto creador.”19 This darkness reveals itself in the social structures that dehumanize, oppress, and bring death to people. As Mateos and Barreto notice, darkness in this sense is not only “anti-luz” (light) but also “anti-vida” (life).20 The mention of “darkness” becomes a way of personifying and portraying all those in opposition to the Logos. Who, however, upholds these ideologies of death? Who are those in power who confront the light but are unable to overcome it? Simply put, they are those who attempt to oppress and bring an extinguishing death upon the Logos. As we will further observe in the gospel, this would include the Roman authorities.21 Samuel Millos also makes a similar case. He argues that the darkness refers to the influential realm of “el sistema gobernado directamente por Satanás y establecido por el.”22 Although Millos does not draw upon the Qumran literature, it must be noted that in the War Scroll the “sons of

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darkness” refers to the nations that wage an eschatological war against the “sons of light” (1QM 1:1–15; 3:1–11). The symbolism of “darkness” in the War Scrolls refers to gentiles. This includes the troops of Edom, Moab, sons of Ammon, Amalekites, Philistia, and the troops of the Kittim of Asshur (1QM 1:1–2). As Brian Schultz observes, these figures are inspired by Daniel 11 and Isaiah 11:14, and the “Kittim” may metaphorically refer to the Romans.23 Craig Evans also points to Qumran and rabbinic literature where light and darkness often symbolize the righteous and the wicked.24 It must be noted that “darkness” is not just symbolic language with no earthly referent. Darkness, in this sense, refers to more than just religious authorities.25 It refers to those in the social and political structure of the Roman Empire who facilitated the death of Jesus. Since darkness is the antithesis of the light and life, this places all those who plot Jesus’s crucifixion and uphold unjust social norms as agents of darkness, that is, allies of Rome. Warren Carter suggests that even though there is an absence of the Roman empire in the prologue, this should not suggest that it was not on the gospel’s radar. Carter argues that the prologue imitates and contests common Roman claims. He asserts, “John’s prologue participates in the competition for sovereignty over the earth.”26 This is most notable, as Carter explains, in the prologue’s description of God’s creative and life-­ giving sovereignty and preexistent origin of the Logos. This point, as he continues, expresses alternative “imperial claims of divine sanction, sovereignty agency, and revelation.”27 Carter thus insists that the prologue makes the point that it is God’s world and Jesus is the bringer of life, not Rome. In fact, the Roman empire and various emperors portrayed themselves as agents of light and rulers of the world. When Cicero was appealing to the Roman senators about the Cateline conspiracy, he describes Rome as the “light of the world.”28 This portrayal of Rome as a great city aimed to stir the senators to do something so that Rome would not burn down and be overtaken by the conspirators. Furthermore, Seneca remarks that Nero viewed himself as a divine ruler and arbiter of life and death. He quotes Nero saying, “Have I of all mortals found favor with Heaven and been chosen to serve on earth as vicar of the gods? I am the arbiter of life and death for the nations.”29 Furthermore, in Ovid’s mythology of the Roman pantheon, he explains that Apollo, also known as Phoebus, was the “light of this vast universe” and gives “light to the world.”30 Yet in the prologue, it is the Logos who brings light and life to humanity and the

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world. Indeed, Jesus is the Logos of life and the light of the world—not Rome, the emperor, nor her gods. What, then, are the implications? Although Carter does not propose that the conflict between the light and darkness in v. 5 is a allusion to the future conflict between Jesus and Roman imperial powers, I do. I believe that this passage points to the hostile resistance that Jesus will receive throughout his ministry, a resistance that will ultimately culminate with his death on the cross. The conflict between the light and darkness is thus turned into a summary of the conflict between Jesus, a Jewish man, with the hostile allies and champions of the empire. It is a summation of the Logos’s encounter with those who align themselves with an imperial power that attempts to overcome and defeat him but can do neither. It is Jesus versus the allies of Rome and empire itself. One may disagree and point to Rudolf Bultmann who interprets the darkness as humanity’s resistance of revelation. Others note that the aorist verb κατέλαβεν suggests an activity in the past with implications for the present.31 Some do not make an affirmative case on who the darkness represents or the translation of κατέλαβεν.32 However, Leon Morris affirms that the darkness and the light come to a bitter conflict at the cross. He insists, though, that we are not to interpret the darkness in a personified sense because this would suppose that the darkness would refer to “people or perhaps the human race at large.”33 Yet this is exactly the representation the prologue creates, and this aspect cannot be downplayed because of the racial implications it may generate. The prologue portrays all those who seek to suffocate the light as darkness, and in the historic activity of Jesus, these include, but are not limited to, those who collude with the Romans. Readers familiar with the gospel’s story are compelled to view the Romans, including those who join the Roman authorities, as agents of death. This “extreme othering,” as Segovia describes, is especially noticeable in this verse. In a sense, people are de-ethnicized and represented, not as they are, but simply as “darkness.” Why represent the Logos’s opponents in such manner? Why compel the readers to view dimly those who seek his death within the gospel and only ascribe life and light to the Logos and humanity? This text rejects the Roman view of its empire as the “light of the whole world and the citadel of all nations.”34 The Romans had a lofty view of themselves, almost as if all foreigners should be thankful for its rule and reign over them, but the prologue undercuts this claim. The Romans and its agents are portrayed as a darkness that is hostile toward the Logos.

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John 1:9–10: World as a De-ethnicized Representation As the prologue continues, the world emerges as a recipient of the Logos’s light. Scholars disagree as to when this activity occurred and the significance of the world. Mateos and Barreto propose that this is a continual manifestation upon all people prior to the historic entrance of the Logos,35 but Millos and Sanchez offer another perspective. They propose that this is a retelling of the Logos’s incarnation, which builds to verse 14.36 In fact, the description of the light “coming into the world”37 also emerges in 3:19.38 This should help us recognize that the prologue summarizes Jesus’s activity in multiple ways, highlighting different aspects in each retelling. This reflects its poetic and hymnic nature, as others also identify.39 To suggest that verse 9 refers to Jesus’s public ministry also supposes that the “shining upon all humanity” and entrance “into the world” becomes a portrayal of an experience that happens for all people. But when did the entire “world” encounter Jesus and experience this shining activity? When did the entire human race experience Jesus’s light? This never occurred. Jesus’s ministry was restricted to the region of Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. Jesus never ventures to the known edges of the world to meet with Scythians or Ethiopians. This is why Morris believes that verse 9 refers to a “general illumination” of all humanity, a teaching also found in Romans 1:20.40 Undoubtedly, the readers may be inculcated with the perspective that no person is far from the reach of the Logos’s light. That may not be the primary meaning of this verse. However, what if we are to understand what occurs during Jesus’s ministry as a representative experience? Or said another way—what if the people who encounter Jesus and hear his teachings become classified and portrayed as the “world”? That is, the Logos’s localized experience in Judea, Samaria, and Galilee is a representation for all encounters. Those who saw and experience the Logos in the historic ministry of Jesus have become paradigmatic representatives of all people—regardless of their agreement or choice in the matter. Is this representation fair? Is Jesus’s activity in Judea sufficient to universalize the claim? The prologue indeed makes this proposition—and the representation stands. Furthermore, we become aware that although the Logos was in the world and made the world, the world did not know (ἔγνω) the Logos (v. 10). This last mention of the “world” has a different nuance, given that κόσμος is the subject of the aorist verb. This signifies

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that the world failed to intimately know the Logos. Mateos and Barreto explain this failure in terms of the world not allowing itself to be illuminated by the Logos.41 Salvador Alday adds that this includes a failure to have a “moral attitude of conversion, dedication, service and love.”42 The world’s encounter with the light is indeed a devastating failure. The world failed to know the Creator and as a result, remained under its earthly and Satanic ruler.43 Who is the “world,” and what does the gospel suggest by this term? Bultmann recognizes that people become the “world” and the “darkness” when they make themselves independent from God, even though they are objects of God’s love and revelation.44 It is vital to notice, though, that in verses 9–10, the term κόσμος appears four times and takes on different nuances. So far, the world is the realm of human existence (vv. 9–10a), a created entity (v. 10b), and a personified being who encountered and had the potential to know the Logos (v. 10c). These are different shades of the term that we must observe. Throughout the gospel, the “world” does take a negative connotation. To be identified with the “world” means to belong to a group that upholds moral values, activities, and allegiances in opposition to God.45 Yet one can also view the “world” as a pool of potential members who may forge a new allegiance through faith. This includes people from diverse racial backgrounds who are subjects of God’s love and mission.46 Finally, the “world” is a general term for all humanity. Its reference to people emerges clearly throughout the gospel. This is perhaps a very popular understanding of κόσμος.47 I want to focus on the use of κόσμος in the last clause of verse 10c which states, “the world did not know him.” There is a representative use of κόσμος that I want to highlight. This passage is not talking about inanimate objects nor a general understanding of the universe. Instead, people groups are becoming categorized and portrayed as the “world,” not by choice, but due to being perceived as ignorant of the Logos.48 Those who become ignorant of the Logos are, by definition, the “world.” Additionally, the world as a masculine noun becomes personified with bodily functions, activities, and passions. The world needs to eat from the bread of life given by Jesus (6:33, 51). He hears Jesus’s teachings in the synagogues and the temple (8:26; 18:20), follows Jesus (12:19), and will no longer see Jesus (14:19). Emotionally, he hates Jesus (7:7; 15:18; 17:14) and rejoices when the disciples lament (16:20). He also cannot receive the Spirit (14:17), gives pseudo-peace (14:27), and will be

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forensically convicted of his sin (16:8). Intellectually, the world needs to know two things: first, that Jesus loves the Father (14:31), and second, that the Father sent and loves both Jesus and the disciples (17:23). However, this knowledge will be difficult to acquire because he does not know the Father (17:25). This failure of the world to “know” the Father echoes 1:10 when the world also did not “know” the Logos. We thus notice the world’s bodily activities such as eating, hearing, seeing, following, hating, being convicted, rejoicing, giving, receiving, and knowing. Who is able to do these things but human beings? This makes the world emerge as person who has no name or face but represents anyone who engages in these activities, especially in the gospel. The “world” can be a Roman, a Jew, a Samaritan, basically anyone. The “world” thus becomes a blank label, a way of rhetorically stripping a person of their racial identity and reclassifying them when they demonstrate any of these characteristics. This representation erases their racial identity, culture, experiences, gender, and humanity. They are de-ethnicized. Furthermore, the world also differs from the disciples (14:22; 15:19; 17:9), not solely in terms of being ignorant, but also due to their status as a non-member. In this sense, the “world” also includes those who are not “us” who know the Logos, saw the Logos’s glory, and dwelt with the Logos (1:14). Where one falls, either as a de-ethnicized person as the “world” or potential enlightened member, depends upon one’s relation and experience to the Logos and the disciples. One is not solely a Jew, Samaritan, Greek, or Roman. One either knows the Logos and his disciples, or one does not. This is not an individualistic affair. It will propel one to reject or join a new community of “knowers,” which is elaborated in the following verse.

John 1:11: Kinship and Racial Rejection We have already noticed that the darkness did not overcome the light (v. 5), and the world did not know the Logos (v. 10). Now, we find specifically in 1:11 that the Logos came to “his own,” but they did not receive him. The phrase “his own” (τὰ ἴδια/οἱ ἴδιοι) appears twice in this verse, making it unequivocal that the Logos was rejected by his own people. What does “his own” (τὰ ἴδια/οἱ ἴδιοι) suggest? Alday and Sanchez propose that this refers to Israel as the Logos’s own people. They point out that only Israel is considered and described as the estate of God.49 Mateos and Barreto further explain that this refers to Jesus’s own casa where he

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should have been received without conditions.50 Morris explains it another way. He states that “his own” refers to the Jewish nation, which becomes a retelling of the incarnation in personal and concrete terms.51 But not all agree. Bultmann asserts that it is impossible for “his own” (τὰ ἴδια/οἱ ἴδιοι) to mean homeland, Israel, or the Jewish people.52 He has a point given that τὰ ἴδια/οἱ ἴδιοι also refers to possessions, people, or body parts.53 But Bultmann’s argument does not address the ethnic context of the verse, how it points to the experiences of rejection within the gospel, and other instances of this term that refer to one’s own home, land, family members, and close friends.54 The use of ἴδια is found in John 4:44 after Jesus had a successful journey in Samaria. While departing from Samaria he asserts that “a prophet has no honor in his own (ἰδίᾳ) homeland” in order to explain both the Samaritan success and difficult experience in Judea.55 Earlier, Jesus did not entrust himself to those in Jerusalem who believed in him (2:24), and he left Judea because the Pharisees were becoming aware of his popularity (4:1–3). These two experiences are insufficient, however, to explain the implications of ἴδια/ἴδιοι in 1:11 or 4:44. Exploring the significance of ἴδια/ἴδιοι in John 1:11 cannot limit itself to solely when the terms appear. Later in the gospel we find that many of Jesus’s disciples abandon him (6:66), his brothers mock him and tell him to go away (7:3–5), the Jews try to stone him multiple times (8:58–59; 10:31), hostility from the Jewish religious leaders force him into hiding (11:54), people refuse to believe despite his many miracles (12:37), one of his own disciples betrays him (13:26–30), and all his disciples abandon him and return to their own (ἴδια) home (16:32). In other words, τὰ ἴδια/οἱ ἴδιοι are not vague or general words for “Israel” or the “Jews.” It points to specific experiences of rejection. A lack of reception emerges within Jesus’s inner circle, such as his brothers, his disciples, and his ethnic community. In antiquity, people groups were defined in relation to the land, and their homes were places of belonging. Roman homes were inhabited by a variety of people, not only the nuclear family such as the parents and children, but extended family members, servants, tenants, and even people connected by commercial relations.56 Small villages such as Cana of Galilee were also composed of buildings densely clustered together, also known as an insulae.57 Although there were various types of homes during the Roman period, they were places where families and extended relatives lived and where work, gendered activities, and private spaces merged.58 Homes were places where one derived one’s identity and community

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membership. Yet throughout the gospel, the Logos is rejected, cast out, ridiculed, chased out of town, betrayed, and abandoned. Rejection emerges in multiple places, at multiple times, in multiple forms, and by multiple people. In a sense, the Logos becomes homeless when he is rejected by those he should least expect such behavior, that is, his own kin. Homelessness and the failed reception from his own kin and ethnic community are the features of this passage. Why are Jesus’s own people represented in such manner? We must notice that Jesus’s own people are not defined. Nowhere within the prologue are these people described as “Jews.” In fact, Jose Miranda proposes that within the verse, the gospel attempts to explain in thesis form why some believed, and others did not. He believes that this passage refers to the events that will later emerge in the gospel.59 Craig Keener also reflects this view. He proposes that this verse introduces the inadequate response of most of ethnic Israel to Jesus, which later became a theological problem for the early Christians.60 Miranda and Keener have a point, and the prologue certainly echoes the failed reception. But the prologue never defines the very “own” people of the Logos. By not mentioning them by name, they are anticipated to emerge within the gospel, thus heightening the reader’s expectation and suspicion of people. Nevertheless, within the gospel, some of Jesus’s ἰδίᾳ did believe and follow him.61 The gospel also notes that Jesus leads and calls his ἰδίᾳ sheep by name (10:3–4) and loves his ἰδίᾳ disciples to the very end (13:1). Likewise, even though the Logos is not received (παρέλαβον) in 1:11, in 14:3 we find Jesus promising the disciples that he will return and receive (παραλήμψομαι) them after he builds a home in his Father’s house. Jesus eventually does have his “own” people, his disciples, those who follow and believe him and will live with him. Although Jesus’s own casa did not receive him—this failed reception is not the end of the story. The prologue inserts the rejection of the Logos in order to justify and explain the need to create a new community, a new home in a new homeland. Until then, the Logos is forced to be a migrant, an exile among his own people to wander the land and look for a new family.

John 1:12–13: Born of God as Kinship Language After describing the rejection of the Logos, the prologue redefines the Logos’s people, not as Jews, but as “children” and utilizes kinship language to place their origins in the divine womb of God. It distinguishes

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between those who did not receive the Logos (v. 11) from those who did receive the Logos (v. 12). With the creation of a new category, “children of God,” the prologue also justifies the eradication of racial and kinship privileges. A new divine kinship emerges as a result of faith in Jesus’s name. This new group is further elaborated in verse 13: “born, not of blood (οὐκ ἐξ αἱμάτων) nor the will of flesh (θελήματος σαρκὸς) nor the will of man (θελήματος ἀνδρὸς), but of God (θεοῦ ἐγεννήθησαν).” This statement in verse 13 utilizes racial rhetoric to strongly reject any fleshly, human, or biological relation for the people of God. It must be noted that ancient medical embryology presumed that the blood was the source of life in procreation. Aristotle proposed that semen and a mother’s nourishing milk originated from blood. But specifically, semen combined with spirit, contributed to the formation of a child within the mother’s womb.62 Even within Jewish literature, blood was mentioned to explain the creation of a child during a woman’s pregnancy.63 In discussing the Watchers who procreated with women, the writer of Enoch states, “You have defiled yourselves with the blood of women, and have begotten children with the blood of flesh” (1 En. 15:4). In this quote, it is contact with blood that creates children. And understood in light of ancient racial views, the prologue emphatically rejects any creation of God’s children through racial relations. What then does it mean to be “born of God?” Within the gospel, the term γεννάω (born) is found in reference to human and divine birth.64 Segovia finds that being “born of God” yields the privilege of perception of the Word, reception of grace and truth, intimate knowledge, and access to God.65 This language continues the family metaphor utilized to describe believers as “children” (v. 12), Jesus as the “only begotten” (v. 18), and God as “father” (v. 18).66 However, Andrew Benko remarks that the phrase “children of God” is the gospel’s proposal for a new cosmic race.67 He holds that within the gospel, humanity is divided between the sons of God and the sons of the devil, which was reflective of several Mediterranean anthropologies.68 Although Benko rightly finds that verse 13 reflects Aristotle’s theory of conception and human reproduction, something more is being illustrated than a comparison between biological and divine begetting.69 The passage has family implications. It must be noted that being “born” meant that one was placed in a genealogical relationship with one’s ancestors. It shapes how one racially views oneself and one’s relation to others. Given that genealogies were records of birth, this meant that they were also utilized to draw upon the inheritance, honor,

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privileges, and rights to the land that properly belong to the descendants of an apical ancestor. This was an important concept in Greek, Roman, and Jewish thought. For the Athenians, Plato explains the symbiotic relationship between the land and the people on the grounds of birth. The Greeks have a right to the land, and the land has a right to claim the life of its inhabitants.70 Euripides’s Ion also narrates the difficulties of not being born of Athenian ancestry. This tragedy demonstrates the problems associated with Greeks who had a questionable birth and the immediate privileges that result from being incorporated into a family.71 Athenians presumed that they were people who were “born from the earth,” which is also known as being autochthonous.72 This was a way of racially arguing for indigenous origins while also having the potential to foster anti-immigrant views. Birthing relations also communicate honor and esteem that emerged from one’s ancestors. Dionysius of Halicarnassus aimed to dispel the belief that the Romans were descendants of barbarians by arguing that they were from the most ancient Greek people.73 King Herod sought to reinvent his identity by associating himself to the Jewish families of Babylon and not his Edomite ancestors.74 There was also a tendency of soldiers who were buried in Rome to include within their epitaph the place of their birth to commemorate their ancestors.75 And early Christians utilized this birthing language in order to give themselves an esteemed ancestry by linking their spiritual descent to the patriarchs.76 That is, to be “born” in antiquity also assumed that one was born with the privileges and honor that derive from one’s ancestors. Being “born” had racial implications that defined and situated a person in relation to a particular people group. Furthermore, the genitive constructions “born of God” (θεοῦ γενέσθαι) and “having been born out of God” (ἐκ θεοῦ ἐγεννήθησαν) are racial rhetoric that describe those who emerge from a racial lineage. Caroline Hodge points out how the preposition ἐκ which is translated as “from” and “out of” emerges in “contexts of descent and kinship where it describes the relationship between offspring and parents.”77 She demonstrates several instances where this construction describes a person’s ethnic heritage and lineage.78 For example, when Josephus describes Moses and the Jewish nation, the Jewish people are portrayed as the posterity of Abraham (ἐκ τῆς Ἁβράμου γενεᾶς).79 This same genitive construction also appears with the Jews and the Lacedemonians who are of the same kindred of Abraham (ἐκ τῆς πρὸς Ἄβραμον).80 This grammatical construction has major implications to our reading of the genitive phrases “born of God” and “born

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out of [ἐκ] God” in vv. 12–13, which are not evident in an English translation of the text. In fact, we miss the lineage and racial rhetoric that the prologue is attempting to make. This portrayal of the believers is similar to the way Philo portrays Abraham as “a man born of God” (γινεται ανθρωπος θεου) who became the apical ancestor of the Jewish people.81 No longer was Abraham understood in relation to his ancestors. From the moment of his birth, he was understood in relation to God and thus became the new apical ancestor for all the Jewish people. Thus, when the prologue utilizes this similar description of Abraham and the ἐκ θεοῦ genitive construction, the writer disrupts the racial identity of the readers. No longer are they tied to their family, kinship community, or racial ancestors. They are to view themselves directly descendants of God as his children in the same manner that Abraham was born of God. The “born of God” language is racial rhetoric—not spiritualized language as commonly understood. It subverts genealogical claims and places the individual who comes to faith in Jesus in a higher status and lineage, thus giving the person greater self-worth. Furthermore, verses 11–13 describe not only the racialized experience of Jesus, but Jesus’s power to legalize a new race no longer beholden to racial categories of a genealogical network or blood relations to ancestors. As such, ethnic claims are subverted, and even redefined, with the affirmation that Jesus holds the right to legalize the membership of God’s family—his new kin. We must also understand this authority to create a new family in light of the Logos’s experience of homelessness, rejection, and identification as a person without a land or people of his own. The failed reception that Jesus experienced became the rationale for a new racial rhetoric. It led to the dissolving of old racial categories and legalization of new ones, those that are portrayed as the Logos’s family—the “children of God” and those “born of God.” These two descriptions of a new peoplehood are highly important for the prologue’s racial imagination. Likewise, this also suggests that the “children of God” are no longer bound to an ethnoracial understanding of themselves but are placed into a new divine lineage. This is in stark contrast to the Jewish claim that they were the children of God.82 Yet, we must notice that it was the experience of Jesus’s ethnic and kinship rejection that provided a new way to understand—and perhaps opportunity to rhetorically create, authorize, and redefine the new birthing experience of believers. As I believe, it is more likely that the prologue’s racial rhetoric is grounded in the racialized experiences of Jesus.

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John 1:6–8, 15–18: Jewish Representation Besides Jesus, only John and Moses are explicitly mentioned by name in the prologue. They are mentioned without any background information, country of origin, ethnic identity, or ancestral relations to guide the reader. John is introduced as a “man sent from God,” and Moses is portrayed as a giver of the “law.” Why include them in the prologue? How does their placement in the prologue contribute to its racial rhetoric? Before we analyze John the Baptist, it must be noted that he is not called the “Baptist” (ὁ βαπτιστὴς) nor do we find any mention of his family, style of dress, or baptism of Jesus, which are typical in the Synoptics.83 John’s background and descriptions are notably absent in the gospel, although he is affirmed as a baptizer.84 This is not to suggest that the readers were unfamiliar with John. When the gospel mentions that he was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, it subtly mentions that this occurred before he was imprisoned (3:24). There is no reason to include this note unless the readers were already familiar with his imprisonment and death. In fact, we know that the popularity of John extended beyond the Jordan River. Josephus mentions that John had great influence over the Jewish people, which led Herod to imprison him.85 According to Acts, John’s influence had reached the Alexandrian teacher named Apollo and other disciples in Ephesus. It became apparent to Priscilla and Aquilla that Apollo was only “acquainted with the baptism of John” (Acts 18:23–24). Paul also encountered some disciples who knew about John’s baptism and were also unaware of the need to be baptized in Jesus’s name (Acts 19:1–5). John the Baptist was clearly an influential Jewish figure with many disciples beyond Judea. When we specifically turn to the Fourth Gospel, John the Baptist attracted many people, including the religious leaders of Jerusalem (John 1:19). Some of John’s disciples were disturbed that Jesus’s disciples were baptizing many people. Was this jealousy on their part? It is difficult to discern, but these disciples informed John of this activity.86 However, some of these disciples, including Andrew, leave the Baptist and follow Jesus (1:37–40). Although John recedes as the gospel progresses, he is consistently portrayed as a testifier, which was first introduced in the prologue.87 The prologue also affirms that John is sent by God so others may believe. Through apophatic language, the reader is made aware that John is not the light (1:8), the Messiah (1:20), Elijah (1:21), the prophet (1:21), the bridegroom (3:29), or a miracle worker (10:41). And even

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though he came first, John is still subordinate to Jesus (1:15). This leads scholars like Bultmann and Brown to propose that the prologue is polemical and an apologetic defense against John’s disciples.88 This is certainly likely, especially since the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions remarks that some of John’s disciples claimed that he was the Messiah.89 Moses appears in the prologue as the giver of the law which distinguishes him from Jesus, the giver the grace and truth (1:17). Like the Baptist, Moses was also a popular figure. His popularity extended beyond Judaism. Hecataeus of Abdera describes Moses as the one who introduced antisocial practices and laws.90 Diodorus believes Moses was the founder of the Jewish people and created misanthropic laws.91 Strabo has a positive view of Moses. He believes Moses was an Egyptian priest who persuaded others to abandon the notion that God could be represented with images.92 Tacitus, however, has harsher views of Moses’s identity, describing Moses as the leader of the exiles who were inflicted with a disease and introduced profane rites that are forbidden by Romans.93 Moses was clearly a more popular figure than John the Baptist. He was known as the founder of the Jewish nation by many non-Jews. Turning to John’s gospel, Moses is mentioned thirteen times. He first appears in the prologue as the giver of the law (1:17).94 The gospel later mentions his name in order to help others understand Jesus’s identity. For example, to describe Jesus’s glorification on the cross, an appeal is made to Moses when the serpent was lifted in the wilderness (3:14). Jesus also defends himself before the Jewish people by appealing to Moses. He asserts that Moses will be their accuser and that if they believed Moses, then they should believe him (5:45–46). There is a clear association between Jesus and Moses. To believe in Moses should lead one to believe in Jesus. The gospel does not deny this claim. Wayne Meeks even suggests that the Moses traditions offer an adequate background for the prophetic-­ royal Christology that develops throughout the gospel.95 But another aspect lingers. Moses also is portrayed in the gospel in order to be diminished and rebuffed. Jesus rebuts the claim that Moses gave the Hebrew people bread from heaven (6:32). And there is a hint of rivalry between Jesus’s disciples and Moses’s disciples. When the Pharisees accuse a healed man to be a disciple of Jesus, this accusation includes an assertion that they are the disciples of Moses (9:28–29). They also claim that God spoke through Moses, but they were unsure whether the same situation was true with Jesus (9:29). These statements, according to Meeks, provide a glimpse into the polemical situation of the readers with

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the Jewish community.96 Indeed, they draw the reader back to the prologue where Moses’s name is first mentioned. Recall that Moses’s identity differs from Jesus who is the giver of grace, truth, and has a unique revelation from the Father (1:17–18). Any reader familiar with the Jewish tradition would recognize that this echoes Moses’s experience at Sinai (Exod 3:20). Although Moses was able to see God’s glory and talk to God face to face (Deut 34:10; Num 12:6–8), this does not compare to the relational superiority that Jesus has with the Father. Additionally, Jesus’s uniqueness as the only begotten also places the disciples in a superior position to the Jewish religious leaders who claim to be “disciples of Moses” (9:28). Why the need to include Moses in the prologue? Is it solely to construct the identity of Jesus and elevate the position of the disciples? Why exclude key details about John’s baptism of Jesus and simply portray him as a witness? Is there a rivalry between the followers of the Baptist and Moses with the members of the Johannine community? The representations of these two figures are not neutral. Indeed, Segovia also notices the polemical, didactic, and hierarchical dynamics of the prologue, especially with the portrayal of these two figures. In particular, he mentions that they both stand within the tradition of Judaism, but Judaism’s relationship to the Logos “ultimately prove[s] to be of no immediate benefit.”97 This is an example of what Segovia describes as extreme “othering.” The prologue clarifies John the Baptist’s identity and recognizes Moses’s inferior position in comparison to Jesus. It also must be noted, however, that the fame of Moses and John the Baptist extended beyond Judea and even penetrated the region of Ephesus where the Johannine community was located. By the time the gospel was written, John the Baptist and Moses had self-­ professed disciples. What then do these representations suggest? Are the Baptist and Moses diminished, made inferior, and thus subordinate in order to bolster the identity of Jesus? These two Jewish figures emerge in the prologue to distinguish Jesus’s identity as the Logos, light, giver of revelation, and the only begotten son of God. This need to place both these popular Jewish figures in an inferior position possibly reveals that there was a rivalry between the followers of Jesus and the followers of the Baptist and Moses. By representing them in this manner, are the readers encouraged to have a sense of self-confidence in the gospel and dispel any criticisms from their opponents? Is there some slight anti-Judaism in these representations? Not necessarily, but the portrayal of these figures does sow the seeds to

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deconstruct the limited benefit of Judaism for the reader. We cannot ignore how these two Jewish figures in the prologue are minimized in comparison to the Logos.

The Prologue’s Racialized Reality We have already reviewed in the first chapter how we find little attention to the racialized language of the prologue in contemporary scholarship. Now that we have examined selected verses and highlighted the prologue’s racial rhetoric, what are we to conclude? I admit, this chapter raises more questions than it answers. I, however, raise these questions to make a simple point that the rhetoric of race is found throughout the prologue. In addition, there are three aspects I want to highlight. First, the prologue portrays the Logos-Jesus as someone who is in racial conflict and rejection with various people. Second, the prologue also deconstructs racial and kinship relations. It destabilizes our understanding of race and ethnicity. Finally, the prologue also raises suspicion. People who will later emerge within the narrative are now viewed dimly, not as they are, or who they claim to be, but how they may correlate with the symbolism of darkness or the world. This is not to assume that this is the only function of the prologue. I do not make this claim, and I recognize that there are other aspects of the prologue I have not mentioned and questions that I ask that I do not answer. The point of this study, however, is to highlight what others have missed, which is, the prologue’s racialized rhetoric and its impact upon our racial imaginations. Racial Conflict and Rejection The Logos primarily appears as a divine being who, in symbolic language, experiences hostility from various people groups. This experience comes on many fronts, beginning with the darkness, world, and his own people—who are not named. The symbolic language is vivid. It was not enough for the darkness to retreat at the presence of the light; the darkness attempted to snuff him out. This cryptically refers to the experience of violence that culminates at the cross by Roman hands. The Logos not only becomes “flesh” but also knows what it means to experience rejection from his kin, his own people. He comes to his own, his own world, yet becomes a rejected creator. He is an expelled divine God forced to wander and live as a foreigner among his own people. He may look like his own

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people, think like them, and talk like them, but he is nonetheless a foreigner. There is no way around this aspect in the prologue. The prologue introduces for the reader the horrific reality of racial rejection in a subtle and symbolic manner. Furthermore, the readers are not given a racial opponent to explicitly identify. Instead, the prologue places the root of the racial conflict and rejection at the hands of people—people who are called not a “Jew” or a “Roman” but “darkness,” “world,” and “his own.” The readers are given vague, symbolic language that raises suspicion and makes them view dimly all those who will come into contact with the Logos-­ Jesus within the gospel. Kinship Identity The Logos responds to this experience of hostility and dislocation by creating a new community no longer bound to the ethnic markers, privileges, and the maintenance of these boundaries. He not only is a foreigner to his own people but also legalizes the newly birthed people who believe in him. In this sense, this authority provides a new birth certificate to those who believe. Those who receive him and become children of God are expected to become dislocated from their own racial genealogical relations and networks. This racial disruption—an uprooting and divestiture of the privileges that come from being born of flesh—awaits those who dare to believe and become born of God. Thus, one’s primary ethnic identity becomes altered, subverted, changed, and ultimately discarded as a result of the Logos’s legalizing authority. We must also notice, though, that this activity emerges in part of the experience of the Logos—as manifested in the life of Jesus with his own people. Jesus himself was a rejected member among his own people. The prologue anticipates this aspect, but also suggests that Jesus will have the new legalizing power to usher a new divinely ethnicized community whose sole Father is God. In addition, this also means that the prologue also invites readers to abandon their ethnocentric way of viewing reality, truth, and others. Thus, to legally join a new divine kinship with the Son, Father, and community of enlightened ones who beheld the glory of the Logos also means that one begins a new life from a new frame of reference—a divine kinship community.

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Racial Representation and Imperial Agendas Third, there are ramifications to the way in which representations emerge throughout the prologue. We must be mindful of these aspects because the various people in the gospel do not emerge to define themselves. They are being portrayed by the narrator and thus shape the racial imagination of the reader. This means that “world” and “darkness” are not neutral terms or self-designations but the way in which people are portrayed based upon their response to the Logos. Their identity is deconstructed and de-­ ethnicized when these labels are placed upon them. Romans and those who collude with the empire will not emerge onto the story in a neutral manner. The reader will already consider them as the darkness and anticipate that they will attempt to extinguish Jesus’s light and life. Jews, Samaritans, and Greeks likewise may emerge, but lingering in the background is the potential to dissolve, subvert, and make insignificant their racial identity, heritage, and privileges. The prologue provides the reader with a new way of looking at racial and kinship groups, disrupting these categories while also recreating them with new imagery. What, then, is the reader to do with these representations? How are readers to understand their relationship to Judaism in light of John the Baptist and Moses? Are they justified in reclassifying and representing those they will encounter in their own contexts? What about those who collude with the empire? Perhaps these representations are an excuse to redefine the “other” and utilize racial rhetoric to construct a superior image of oneself and justify claims to power. We must remember that representations reveal more about the person who creates the representations than it does about the people who are represented. In this sense, the prologue also provides a way of understanding Jesus and oneself through the representation of the other. The prologue disrupts and re/deconstructs the racial identity of people groups. It does so by representing their identity, whether subtly, implicitly, or symbolically, in light of their interaction and relation to the Logos. The prologue makes sense of not only the Jewish and Roman rejection of Jesus but also the hostility that readers will experience from those they least expect—their kin and racial community.

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Conclusion As I have attempted to demonstrate, we cannot keep reading the prologue on a mystical and cosmic sphere, understanding the Logos solely as a divine God who never touches the racial reality of humanity. Indeed, Carter makes a similar point when he suggests that we cannot read John as a religious text divorced from the political, economic, and cultural factors.98 I believe that what we find instead is the prologue’s reshaping of the reader’s racial imagination in light of Jesus’s identity and experiences. The prologue previews the story of Jesus as someone who was a rejected member of his own kin and ethnic community. Jesus differs from esteemed Jewish figures and withstands the Roman powers that attempt to extinguish his life. He also emerges as someone who holds the sole power to authorize the creation of a new race, those born of God. These racialized themes are woven within the prologue of the gospel and shape how the reader is to understand, interpret, classify, and observe the movement and actions of all people groups who interact with Jesus in the gospel. How, then, will the prologue continue to shape and influence the reader’s racial imagination? How will readers understand the ethnic rejection of Jesus’s family, community, and ethnic encounters with people through the lens of the prologue? How will this representation continue to filter the trajectory of the reader’s gospel reading? To answer these questions, we will now explore the implications of racial representation in the gospel by taking a closer look at Jesus’s kin and the various ethnic groups he encounters.

Notes 1. Segovia, “The Gospel of John,” in A Postcolonial Commentary on the New Testament Writings, ed. Fernando Segovia and R. S. Sugirtharajah (New York: T & T Clark, 2009), 173; Segovia, “John 1:1–18 As Entrée into Johannine Reality Representation Ramifications,” in Word, Theology, and Community in John (St. Louis: Chalice, 2002), 56. 2. Segovia, “John 1:1–18,” 54–56. 3. Peter Williams points out that some manuscripts (P66, P75, ‫א‬, A, B) recognize 1:1–5 and not 1:1–18. See “Not the Prologue of John,” JSNT 33.4 (2011): 375–376; J. Ramsey Michaels views 1:1–5 as a “preface or preamble” in The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010), 45. 4. Quintilian, 4.1.1. 5. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Lysias, 17.

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6. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Lysias, 19. 7. Euripides, Ion. 1–75. 8. Peter Phillips, The Prologue of the Fourth Gospel: A Sequential Reading (New York: T&T Clark, 2006), 139–140, 143–220; Elizabeth Harris, Prologue and Gospel: The Theology of the Fourth Evangelist (England: Sheffield, 1994), 15. 9. Jean Zumstein, “Le Prologue, Seuil de Quatrième Évangile,” Rsr 83.2 (1995): 217–239 [esp. 239]; also Zumstein, “Der Prolog, Schwelle zum vierten Evangelium,” in Der Johannesprolog, ed. Günter Kruck (Germany: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2009), 49–75. 10. Heraclitus, “From the Logos, which they associate most, and which governs all, they are apart and, even as those things they daily meet, seems to them most strange” (fr. 72); Heraclitus’s description of the pervading but unknowable Logos in frag. 1, 2, 45, 50; Diogenes Laertius, “right reason (λόγος) which pervades all things, and is identical with this Zeus, lord and ruler of all that is” (7.1.88); Cicero also quotes Zeno, who claimed that world has reason and is both animate and rational (Nat. d. 2.7.18–20; 2.8.22). 11. See Craig Evans, Word and Glory: On the Exegetical and Theological Background of John’s Prologue (New York: T&T Clark, 1993), 77–99; Raymond Brown recognizes the Jewish context of the Logos in The Gospel According to John I–XII, AB 29 (New York: Doubleday, 1966), 519–524. In Jewish literature wisdom is personified (Prov 8:1–36; Sir 1:1–10; 15:2; 24:1–34; Wis 8:2–3; 9:4); exists before creation (Prov 8:22–30; Sir 24:9; Wis 9:9); is involved in creation (Prov 3:19; 8:27–30; Wis 7:21; 8:4–6; 9:1–2, 9); descends from heaven (Bar 3:29–30); is loved by God (Wis 8:3); sits on God’s throne (Wis 9:4); comes from God (Sir 24:3; Wis 9:1–2). Likewise, the Torah is the source of Wisdom (Sir 15:1; 19:20; 39:1; Bar 3:29–4:1); eternal (Ps 119:152, 160; 1 En 99:2; Bar 4:1; Philo, Moses, 2.14; Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.277; Tob. 1:6); related to life and light (Ps 19:8; 119:93; Prov 6:23; Sir 17:11; Wis 18:4; 4 Ezra 14:30; 2 Bar 59:2). Philo also utilizes λόγος in his writings (Leg. 3:96; Migr. 1:6; Spec. 1:81; Her. 1:206; Agr. 1:51; Conf. 1:147); Mireille Hadas-Lebel and Robyn Fréchet suggest that for Philo, the λόγος is God’s instrument in creation, pervades the universe, governs the world, and is related to wisdom. 12. Secundino Castro Sánchez, Evangelio de Juan (España: Desclée De Brouwer, 2008), 52. 13. John 3:19; 8:12; 9:5; 12:35–36, 46. 14. “καταλαμβάνω,” BDAG, 413; The KJV, NAU, NIV, and LBA [Spanish] prefer an intellectual sense of the term. However, the NAB, NET, NLT, NRSV, CAB [Spanish], and RVA [Spanish] convey a confrontational meaning.

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15. NVI, RVR, NTV, DHH, CST. 16. Alvin Padilla, Juan (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2011), 16–17. See also LBA, NBLA. 17. Salvador Carrillo Alday suggests that this springs forth from the Genesis narrative and continues into the ministry of Jesus in El Evangelio Según San Juan (Editorial Verbo Divino, 2010), 82. Other uses of καταλαμβάνω also denote a hostile intent within the gospel. It appears in 8:3–4 with the sense of capturing or seizing and when Jesus warns the disciples to walk in the light so that the “darkness does not overtake” them (12:35). Also Craig Keener, John (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 1:1:387. 18. Juan Mateos y Juan Barreto, El Evangelio de Juan: Análisis Lingüístico Y Comentario Exegético (Madrid: Ediciones Cristiandad, 1982), 58; Sánchez, Juan, 52; Alday, Juan, 81; Samuel Millos, Juan: Comentario Exegético Al Texto Griego Del Nuevo Testamento (Barcelona: Editorial Clie, 2016), 108. 19. Mateos y Barreto, Juan, 59–60. 20. Mateos y Barreto, Juan, 58. 21. Mateos y Barreto, Juan, 59. 22. Millos finds similarities with the kingdoms and realm of darkness in Ephesians 5:8; 6:12 (Juan, 107). 23. Brian Schultz, Conquering the World: The War Scroll (1QM) Reconsidered (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 124–158. 24. Evans, Word and Glory, 111, 131; see b. Sot. 12a; b. Hag. 12a; b. Yom. 38b; Midr. Ps. 27.1; Pes. r. 36.1; t. Ber. 17b. 25. John 12:36–43. 26. Warren Carter, John and Empire: Initial Explorations (NY: T&T Clark, 2008), 151. 27. Carter, John and Empire, 152. 28. Cicero, Cat. 4.6. See also 4.7. 29. Seneca, Clem. 1.1. 30. Ovid, Metam. 2.30, 145. 31. Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John (Philadelphia: Westminster: 1976), 46–47; also Stephen Need, “Re-reading the Prologue Incarnation and Creation in John 1:1–18,” Theo 106.834 (2003): 401–402; Brown, John I–XII, 27; Udo Schnelle, Antidocetic Christology in the Gospel of John, trans. Linda Maloney (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 217. 32. C.  K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John (London: SPCK, 1970), 132; Meye Thompson, John (KY: Westminster, 2015), 26; John Painter, The Quest for the Messiah: The History, Literature and Theology of the Johannine Community (Nashville: Abingdon, 1993), 154. 33. Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John (Michigan: Eerdmans, 1995), 76–77; Michaels, John, 57.

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34. Cicero, Cat. 4.11; J.P.V.D. Balsdon, Romans and Aliens (Chapel Hill, NC: UNC, 1979), 10. 35. Mateos y Barreto, Juan, 61–62; Bernadette Escaffre argues that this is simply a general description of humanity’s rejection in Evangelio de Jesucristo Según San Juan (España: Editorial Verbo Divino, 2012), 9–11. 36. Sánchez, Juan, 54; Millos, Juan, 118. 37. Τὸ φῶς… ἐρχόμενον εἰς τὸν κόσμον. 38. Τὸ φῶς ἐλήλυθεν εἰς τὸν κόσμον. Similar phraseology, “ἐρχόμενον εἰς τὸν κόσμον,” appears in John 3:31; 6:14; 9:39; 11:27; 12:46–47; 16:28; and 18:37. 39. Barrett, John, 133–134; Brown, John I-XII, 28–29. 40. Morris, John, 84; Bultmann, John, 52–53. 41. Mateos y Barreto, Juan, 62. 42. Alday, Juan, 84. 43. John 14:30; 16:11. 44. Bultmann, John, 55. 45. Estrada III, Rodolfo Galvan, A Pneumatology of Race in the Gospel of John: An Ethnocritical Approach (Oregon: Pickwick, 2019), 251–254; Millos, Juan, 119–121; John 7:7; 14:17, 27, 30; 15:18–19; 17:14, 25. 46. John 1:29; 3:16–17; 4:42; 6:33; 7:4; 8:12; 9:5; 11:27; 12:19, 46–47; 14:22, 31; 17:6, 9, 18; 18:20, 37. 47. John the Baptist identifies Jesus as a redeemer for all (1:29). The world also has the potential to have eternal life (3:16–17; 17:21). Jesus’s mission is for all (12:47), and the Samaritans describe Jesus as a savior for all (4:42). 48. Estrada, Pneumatology, 256–258. 49. Alday, Juan, 84; Sanchez, Juan, 54; Brown, John I-XII, 10; Barrett, John, 136. Certainly, τὰ ἴδια/οἱ ἴδιοι draws us to Old Testament references for the people of God. See Exod 19:5; Deut 4:20; 7:6; Jer 2:3; Ezek 37:27; Isa 62:12. 50. Mateos y Barreto, Juan, 63; Millos, Juan, 122. 51. Morris, John, 85–86; Michaels, John, 67. 52. Bultmann, John, 56n1. 53. In reference to God: Wis 2:23; Servants: Gen 14:14; Money: Deut 15:2; Prov 13:8; Human body and limbs: Gen 47:18; Prov 6:2; 16:23; Dan 1:10; Sus 1:60; Sir 37:19, 22; Wife: Prov 5:19–20; Fountain: Prov 5:18. 54. In reference to Land: Gen 15:13; Prov 9:12; 20:25; Job 2:11; Ezek 21:35; Town: Matt 9:1; John 4:44; Home: Est 5:10; 6:12; Prov 27:8, 15; Job 7:10; 24:12; Sir 11:34; John 16:32; 19:27; Acts 21:6; 1 Tim 3:4–5, 12; Father: John 5:18; Brothers: John 1:41; Son: Acts 20:28; Rom 8:32; Spouse: 1 Cor 7:2; 14:35; Eph 5:22; 1 Pet 3:5; Relatives: 1 Tim 5:4, 8; Disciples: John 13:1; Friends: Acts 4:23; Close people: John 15:19; 1 Thess 2:14; Sheep: John 10:3–4, 12.

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55. This proverb is also found in the Synoptics, but the wording and context differs (Mark 6:4; Matt 13:57; Luke 4:24). Jesus is unable to do any miracles in Nazareth, his own hometown, because of their lack of faith. Luke adds that they attempt to throw Jesus off a cliff (Luke 4:28–30). 56. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, “Domus and Insulae in Rome: Families and Housefuls,” in Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue, ed. David Balch and Carolyn Osiek (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), 4. 57. Peter Richardson, “Khirbet Qana (and Other Villages) as a Context for Jesus,” in Jesus and Archaeology, ed. James Charlesworth (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006), 126. 58. Eric Meyers, “The Problem of Gendered Space in Syro-Palestinian Domestic Architecture: The Case of Roman-Period Galilee,” in Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue, ed. David Balch and Carolyn Osiek (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 58–60. 59. José Miranda, Being and the Messiah: The Message of St. John (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2006), 93. 60. Keener, John, 1:398. 61. John 1:43; 2:1, 11; 4:45–54; 7:12. 62. Aristotle, Gen. an. 726b, 728a, 777a. 63. 1 Macc 13:19–22; Philo, QG. 3.47. 64. Human birth: John 3:4, 6; 8:41; 9:2, 19–20, 32, 34; 16:21; 18:37; Divine Birth: John 1:13; 3:3, 5–8. 65. Segovia, “John 1:1–18,” 49, 55–56. 66. Segovia, “John 1:1–18,” 55. 67. Andrew Benko, Race in John’s Gospel: Toward an Ethnos-conscience Approach (New York: Fortress, 2019), 159. 68. Benko, Race, 172. 69. Benko, Race, 178–180. 70. Plato, Crito, 50b, 51c; Menex. 237d-238b; St. 271a. 71. Euripides, Ion, 585–605; 670–675. 72. Vincent Rosivach, “Autochthony and the Athenians,” The Classical Quarterly 37.2 (1987): 294–306 [esp. 297–303]. 73. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. rom., 1.89. 74. Josephus, Ant., 14.9. 75. David Noy, Foreigners at Rome: Citizens and Strangers (UK: Classical Press of Wales, 2000), 7–9. 76. Denise Buell, Why This New Race: Ethnic Reasoning in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia, 2005), 75–76. 77. Caroline Johnson Hodge, If Sons, Then Heirs: A Study of Kinship and Ethnicity in the Letters of Paul (New York: Oxford, 2007), 80. 78. Hodge, If Sons, 80–82.

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79. Josephus, Ant. 4.4. 80. Josephus, Ant. 2.226. 81. Philo, Gig. 1.63. 82. Deut 32:5; Prov 14:26; Hos 11:1; Isa 63:8; Jer 3:19; Ezek 16:21; Jub 1:25; 2:20; 19:29; Pss. Sol. 17:27; Wis 2:13, 16, 18; 5:5; 11:10. 83. Matt 3:1–17; Mark 1:4–11; Luke 1:5–25, 57–80; 3:1–22. 84. John 1:25; 3:23; 4:1; 10:40. 85. Josephus, Ant. 18.5.2. 86. John 1:35–37; 3:25. 87. John 1:7, 8, 15; 5:33–36; 10:40–42. 88. Bultmann, John, 17; Raymond Brown, Community of the Beloved Disciple: The Life, Loves, and Hates of an Individual Church in New Testament Times (New York: Paulist, 1979), 69–71. 89. Ps.-Clem. Recog. LIV. 90. Diodorus, 40.3.1–5. 91. Diodorus, 34.3. 92. Strabo, Geogr. 16.2.35–37. 93. Tacitus, Hist. 5.3–5.7. 94. John 1:45; 7:19, 22–23; 8:5. 95. Wayne Meeks, The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2017), 287. 96. Meeks, The Prophet–King, 295. 97. Segovia, “John 1:1–18,” 55–56. 98. Carter, John and Empire, 21.

References Alday, Salvador Carrillo. El Evangelio Según San Juan. Editorial Verbo Divino, 2010. Balsdon, John Percy Vyvian Dacre. Romans and Aliens. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC, 1979. Barrett, C. K. The Gospel According to St. John. London: SPCK, 1970. Benko, Andrew. Race in John’s Gospel: Toward an Ethnos-Conscious Approach. Lanham, MD: Fortress Press, 2019. Brown, Raymond. The Gospel According to John 1–12. New York: Doubleday, 1966. ———. Community of the Beloved Disciple: The Life, Loves, and Hates of an Individual Church in New Testament Times. New York: Paulist, 1979. Buell, Denise. Why This New Race: Ethnic Reasoning in Early Christianity. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Bultmann, Rudolf. The Gospel of John. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1976. Carter, Warren. John and Empire: Initial Explorations. New  York: T&T Clark, 2008.

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Escaffre, Bernadette. Evangelio de Jesucristo Según San Juan. España: Editorial Verbo Divino, 2012. Estrada, Rodolfo. A Pneumatology of Race in the Gospel of John: An Ethnocritical Study. Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2019. Evans, Craig. Word and Glory: On the Exegetical and Theological Background of John’s Prologue. New York: T&T Clark, 1993. Harris, Elizabeth. Prologue and Gospel: The Theology of the Fourth Evangelist. England: Sheffield, 1994. Hodge, Caroline Johnson. If Sons, Then Heirs: A Study of Kinship and Ethnicity in the Letters of Paul. New York: Oxford, 2007. Keener, Craig. The Gospel of John: A Commentary. Vols. 1–2. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003. Mateos, Juan y Juan Barreto. El Evangelio de Juan: Análisis Lingüístico Y Comentario Exegético. Madrid: Ediciones Cristiandad, 1982. Meeks, Wayne. The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2017. Meyers, Eric. “The Problem of Gendered Space in Syro-Palestinian Domestic Architecture: The Case of Roman-Period Galilee.” Pages 44–69  in Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue. Edited by David Balch and Carolyn Osiek. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003. Michaels, J. Ramsey. The Gospel of John. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010. Millos, Samuel. Juan: Comentario Exegético Al Texto Griego Del Nuevo Testamento. Barcelona: Editorial Clie, 2016. Miranda, José. Being and the Messiah: The Message of St. John. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2006. Morris, Leon. The Gospel According to John. Michigan: Eerdmans, 1995. Need, Stephen. “Re-reading the Prologue Incarnation and Creation in John 1:1–18.” Theology 106.834 (2003): 397–404. Noy, David. Foreigners at Rome: Citizens and Strangers. UK: Classical Press of Wales, 2000. Padilla, Alvin. Juan. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2011. Painter, John. The Quest for the Messiah: The History, Literature and Theology of the Johannine Community. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1993. Phillips, Peter. The Prologue of the Fourth Gospel: A Sequential Reading. New York: T&T Clark, 2006. Richardson, Peter. “Khirbet Qana (and Other Villages) as a Context for Jesus.” Pages 120–144 in Jesus and Archaeology. Edited by James Charlesworth. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006. Rosivach, Vincent. “Autochthony and the Athenians.” The Classical Quarterly 37.2 (1987): 294–306. Sánchez, Secundino Castro. Evangelio de Juan. España: Desclée De Brouwer, 2008.

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Schnelle, Udo. Antidocetic Christology in the Gospel of John. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1992. Schultz, Brian. Conquering the World: The War Scroll (1QM) Reconsidered. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Segovia, Fernando. “John 1:1–18 As Entrée into Johannine Reality Representation Ramifications.” Pages 33–64 in Word, Theology, and Community in John. Edited by Fernando F.  Segovia, John Painter, and R.  Culpepper. St. Louis, MO: Chalice, 2002. ———. “The Gospel of John.” Pages 156–193 in A Postcolonial Commentary on the New Testament Writings. Edited by Fernando Segovia and R. S. Sugirtharajah. New York: T & T Clark, 2009. Thompson, Marianne Meye. John. Louisville, KY: Westminster, 2015. Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew. “Domus and Insulae in Rome: Families and Housefuls.” Pages 3–18  in Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue. Edited by David Balch and Carolyn Osiek. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003. Williams, Peter. “Not the Prologue of John.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 33.4 (2011): 375–386. Zumstein, Jean. “Le Prologue, Seuil de Quatrième Évangile.” Recherches de Science Religieuse 83.2 (1995): 217–239. ———. “Der Prolog, Schwelle zum vierten Evangelium.” Pages 49–75  in Der Johannesprolog. Edited by Günter Kruck. Germany: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2009.

CHAPTER 5

The Prologue and Kinship: A Latino Reading of the Johannine Family

When I was growing up, my close friends would customarily greet me by saying, “Qué onda, carnal, ¿Cómo estás?” The word carnal within this Spanish greeting translates into English as the word brother. When speaking to a sister, a Spanish-speaker utilizes the word carnala. One commonly hears this greeting among Mexican Americans, especially when spoken by a family member, but from a friend, the word means something different. It means the friend considers the person spoke to like a brother or sister—a deeper relational bond than a friendship bond. Additionally, calling one a carnal or a carnala implies a sense of responsibility—a promise to support, protect, or honor the family regardless of the circumstance or situation. This type of language features prominently in the gang culture. It is the way that we would speak and refer to one another. I did not use this term lightly; when I heard or said it, I knew we were talking about something more than just a typical friendship. We viewed each other like a family. Family is a core Latinx cultural value that filters the way we understand relationships and responsibilities with one another. Sociologically, this is also known as familismo. This term was first defined as “strong in-group feelings, emphasis on family goals, common property, mutual support, and the desire to pursue the perpetuation of the family.”1 This definition is widely utilized to understand the Latinx family with its strong sense of loyalty, obligation, and solidarity. Because of this cultural trait, Latinx families may live in multigenerational homes or near each other in order to © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Galvan Estrada III, A Latino Reading of Race, Kinship, and the Empire, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20305-3_5

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support one another. This is what Ada María Isasi-Díaz describes as an “amplified family.”2 She defines the Latinx family as a vast network of relationships. The community is an extension of the family with comadres (co-­mothers) and compadres (co-fathers).3 Latinx families value respect for authority and place greater significance on conformity, not on independence or autonomy.4 Research demonstrates that where Latinx families exhibit high levels of familismo, there is low substance abuse and better coping measures regarding discrimination.5 Psychologically, this has become a protective mechanism against depressive symptoms among Mexican-descent adolescents.6 Religiously, Valerie Torres finds that the family is the locus theologicus, where Latinx youth learn their spiritual rituals, are evangelized, and form their faith.7 Ken Crane also observes that Latinx churches operate as extended families. Church provides religious and ethnic socialization that reinforce family values. As Crane states, “Latino congregations are therefore places where the cultural notions of family are enacted and celebrated.”8 Family, from a Latinx perspective, also shapes the way we read the Bible. As Justo Gonzalez observes, “the Bible and the history of the church are often read as a family tree.”9 A Latinx perspective recognizes that family entails more than a biological relationship—it involves living in solidarity with others, supporting one another, growing spiritually, and deriving status and identity from this network. My family shapes and forms my racial-cultural identity. This includes my cultural practices, ways of understanding society, and religious tradition. My family also involves a much broader group than my biological kin; it includes my close friends—those who have included, embraced, and welcomed me as one of their own. To lose my family, or to experience expulsion from the family, means losing my identity, my life, and my social support. I would be no one and nothing without my family and racial community—a mere wanderer on this earth with no place to call home and no one to call me their own.

Family and Kinship in the Prologue Commonalities exist between a Latinx understanding of the family and the concept in antiquity. However, exploring in antiquity how families lived and who was included within this matrix brings some challenges. The English (and Spanish) word “family” comes from the Latin familia, which originally referred to those under the control of a male figure—including

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free people, slaves, servants, and blood or affinity relations.10 The term primarily referred to a collection of slaves. The Romans rarely used familia in reference to the nuclear family.11 Instead, as Suzanne Dixon points out, they used the term domus, translated as “house” when referring to their lineage or kinship unit.12 The difficulty of identifying the concept also appears in the New Testament given that no equivalent term appears. Many Bible versions translate Greek words and phrases such as οἶκος, οἰκεῖος, πατριά, σπέρμα, συγγενής, and γένος into the word “family.”13 These terms describe a close, intimate group of people who are related or have close bonds. Another way to think about “family,” the nuclear household and extended relatives, is through kinship. Although the terms “kinship” and “family” are not mentioned in the Johannine prologue, they permeate the verses. Recall that in John 1:11 the Logos came to his own and was not received. As mentioned in previous chapters, the Logos became homeless when he was rejected by those closest to him. This would include his racial and kinship community, those considered part of his own casa. The prologue also puts forth the notion of a new kin through the birthing activity of God. That is, those who receive and believe in the Logos are legalized as new children “born of God” (vv. 12–13). These children are not bound to one another through biological relations or apical ancestors but rather joined through a shared experience of being born of God (v. 13). The repeated emphasis that these children are not born of “blood,” “flesh,” or “man” implies a rejection of identities that are defined in relation to the family, and by implication this also extends to genealogies, ancestral heritages, and racial identities.14 This does not presume that racial identity has become superfluous. We must notice that the gospel is using a racial argument to dissolve the prime importance that family relations, ancestral genealogies, and one’s racial identity has for the readers. We do this by the creation of a new family through divine birth. Those born of God must view themselves as God’s new children, just as legitimate as any racial descendent from an apical ancestor. This same theme emerges in John 3:1–10 but attributes this reconfiguration of the family and race relations to the birthing activity of the Spirit.15 Racial logic is used to dismantle and recreate a new identity as children who God calls his legitimate descendants. Associating one’s birth to a god or hero would not have been uncommon. Alexander the Great was considered a descendant of the Greek hero, Hercules. This ancestral heritage, as Diodorus remarks, gave Alexander the “inherited the physical and moral qualities of greatness.”16 This claim

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elevated Alexander’s status and shaped how he was portrayed and remembered. Furthermore, Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome, were believed to have the god Mars as their father.17 Attributing the father of Romulus and Remus to Mars is no coincidence. Titus Livius (Livy) relates this to the military glory of Rome and why people must submit to Rome’s dominion.18 And we find similar imperial propaganda when Virgil asserts that Caesar Augustus was the descendent of a “noble line” who “shall extend his empire to the ocean” and “glory to the stars.”19 Birthing relations, especially when attributed to a divine origin, redefined racial identity, justified racial inclusion, and had the potential to elevate the family’s status. As in the case with Caesar Augustus, lineages were part of the rhetoric of power and prestige in the ancient world. Remarkably, the Johannine claim that one can become a child of God follows this racial logic. It becomes another way of reinventing one’s racial identity through a permanent place in God’s family. Through a new, and enhanced lineage, believers connect to God as his direct children and heirs like the way that emperors or heroes did with their gods. This linkage also means that the current family, kinship, and racial relations have become disrupted, discarded, and dislodged from their embedded networks. A new family status emerges, one that is enhanced and has racial origins with the divine. Furthermore, the prologue also hints at a new family with God the Father and Jesus as the only begotten Son (v. 18). Although Fernando Segovia notes how gender roles and identity within the prologue are primarily expressed through masculine relations, this common pattern existed in Greco-Roman and Jewish families. People traced their genealogies through male lines.20 Alison Jasper, a feminist scholar, interprets the prologue differently. She finds that the prologue critiques the oppressive patriarchal society, especially since the identity of the “children” are not defined in terms of blood or lineage (vv. 12–13).21 Jasper suggests that these verses reject culturally determined impositions on female existence. Thus, the family of God in the prologue should not include aspects that oppress and reduce womanhood solely to procreation.22 Jasper’s reading recognizes the displacement of male authority over the female body, but I want to take the reading further. The prologue disrupts all kinship relations, and by extension, our understanding of racial boundaries, belonging, and inherited racial identity. This leads to the main questions of this chapter: How must we view this disruption and reconstruction of kinship relations in the gospel in light of the prologue? And how does Jesus’s identity develop through these representations?

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This next section explores the theme of kinship by looking at Jesus’s interaction with his own family—his mother and brothers, and his newly reconstituted family—the disciples. In particular, I focus on passages where kinship imagery occurs, examining how these family relationships are reconfigured. The passages that we will review highlight what I believe reflect the gospel’s kinship imagination. However, I will begin with a review on the significance of kinship in antiquity and its racial implications.

Kinship in Antiquity What is “kinship?” Bruce Malina suggests that kinship is “about naturing and nurturing human beings interpreted as family members.”23 He distinguishes between biological kin and fictive kin. As he believes, the post-­ Jesus groups and Paul’s description of believers are fictive kinship groups shaped by the norms of the kinship institution.24 Joan Cecelia Campbell agrees. She identifies two types of kinfolk for Jesus, his immediate family, and those who are expressed in fictive kinship language but not biologically linked.25 We, however, must have caution with this use of “fictive” versus “real” kinship, as if the hearers of the Fourth Gospel would have made that distinction. As David Schneider explains, the study of kinship within cultural anthropology has derived “directly and practically unaltered from the ethnoepistemology of European culture.”26 He explains that European social scientists have defined kinship according to their own folk culture.27 Christopher Jones and Caroline Johnson Hodge make a similar point by avoiding the use of “fictive kinship.” Jones asserts that it was not “fiction to the actors” in antiquity.28 Hodge notes that “fictive kinship” implies a kinship “less real, less true, less ‘natural’ than other kinds of kinship.”29 The use of “kinship” in this study does not adhere to the distinctions between real or fictive kinship. I do not see this language as an artificial claim. It had real concrete implications and was even called upon in political diplomacy. Linguistically, the term “kinship” is συγγενής, formed by the two Greek words συν (with) and γίγνομαι (to be born). The term describes those who have a common family origin or those of the same race. Its broader meaning refers to one’s own people, tribe, or descendants.30 In Mark 6:4, it describes a prophet who does not have honor among his own people. Luke and John use this term to describe a family network of people (Luke 1:58; 2:44; Acts 10:24; John 18:26). It also describes a racial community that differs from parents, friends, brothers, or neighbors (Luke 14:12;

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21:16). Paul uses this term four times in Romans to describe his own Jewish people and friends (9:3; 16:7, 11, 21). As these few uses demonstrate, one can narrowly define kinship as “family” and broadly enough to include one’s race. Philo understands kinship and race as concepts that explain network relations, remarking, “in the houses of his race (γένους) some are near relations and some distant, but still, they are all kin (συγγενεῖς) to one another.”31 Elsewhere, he views kinship synonymous with blood relations. He states, “one’s own kin (συγγενεῖς) are not far from blood relations, and they must very nearly come under the same definition with them.”32 Kinship bonds however were not limited to blood relations or distant family members. They were malleable enough to include converts. Philo reasons that since foreigners left their natural blood relations, native land, customs, temples, worship, and honor of their gods, the Jewish people should embrace these foreigners as their own.33 He points to Moses who commands the Jewish people to love the strangers, not only as they love their friends and relations (συγγενεῖς), but even as they love themselves, doing them all the good possible both in body and soul; and, as to their feelings, sympathizing with them both in sorrow and in joy, so as to appear all one creature, though the parts are divided; mutual fellowship uniting the whole and rendering it compact and coherent.34

As the aforementioned reference suggests, since converts abandoned their kinship network, it proved important for the Jewish people to love them as one would love one’s own kin. This also demonstrates the malleability of kinship bonds. Kinship relations were not permanent but could expand to include converts and could break by expelling members. If a family member led one away from honoring God, as Philo states, it would be appropriate to disown them even if they claimed inspiration by the Holy Spirit.35 For Philo, honoring God was more important than the bonds that hold together one’s family. Greco-Roman writers both narrowly and broadly understand kinship. Marcus Aurelius views kinship in terms of the common human race.36 Cicero describes kinship as a network that connects humanity. There is not only a universal kinship, but close kinship bonds between family members and races. Kinship includes those of the “same people, tribe, and tongue” while also bringing together the family composed of a husband, wife,

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parents, and children.37 The family, according to Cicero, serves as the nursery of the state. Or, as he describes, the “foundation of civil government.”38 A kinship of common blood (sanguis), as Cicero suggests, keeps people together with good will and affection, especially since they share the same family traditions, worship, and ancestral tombs.39 Kinship claims are found in political diplomacy. During Alexander the Great’s military campaign against the Sibians in India, he became aware of their status as descendants of Hercules’s soldiers. The Sibians presented him with gifts given that he too was a related descendant. Diodorus remarks that the Sibians “renewed their ties of kinship, and undertook to help him enthusiastically in every way, as being his relatives.”40 Alexander accepted their kinship claim and declared their cities free from his invasion. In addition, Herodotus records a message that King Xerxes sent to the Argives to prevent them from joining the Greeks in a war against the Persians. King Xerxes relays the following message through a courier: Men of Argos, this is the message to you from King Xerxes. Perses our forefather had, as we believe, Perseus son of Danae for his father, and Andromeda daughter of Cepheus for his mother; if that is so, then we are descended from your nation. In all right and reason, we should therefore neither march against the land of our forefathers, nor should you become our enemies by aiding others or do anything but abide by yourselves in peace.41

The Persian claim to a common kinship convinced the Argives to remain neutral in the political conflict. This kinship connection between the Persians and Greeks expands beyond the Argives. Aeschylus’s Persians includes a dream by Xerxes’s mother that also presumes this point. In her dream, she saw two women described as “sisters of the same race” even though they were from different lands.42 Why this association? Perseus within Greek tradition was the apical ancestor of the Persian race and a Greek hero who slew the head of Medusa.43 An accepted tradition existed that the Persians and Greeks, although enemies, had a kinship relation in their distant past. Xerxes’s mother in Aeschylus’s Persians assumes this point. Some also appeal to ancient kinship relations between Jews and Spartans. Josephus notes that Onias, the Jewish high priest, received correspondence from King Areus of Sparta. The Spartans claimed that the Jews and Lacedaemonians were of the same kindred race through the ancestry of Abraham. As such, the Spartans would support any Jewish

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affairs.44 The Hasmonean leader Jonathan also utilizes this assumed kinship when he sent an embassy to Rome and Sparta. Jonathan desires to renew this Spartan relationship while also reminding the Spartans that they continually pray to God and offer sacrifices on their behalf.45 Jonathan writes to the Spartans, “Send us an account of what you stand in need of from us, since we are in all things disposed to act according to your desires.”46 Although this kinship claim is difficult to prove, Josephus does not dispute the relationship. Why this tendency to identify kinship bonds between diverse racial groups with an appeal to an apical ancestor? Eric Gruen explains an attempt to stress affiliation rather than disjunction, which also aimed to transcend conflict and warfare.47 This, as he surmises, challenges the concept of “otherness” in antiquity.48 Jones adds that there was an earnest desire to negotiate between communities by finding and renewing links in the mythic past.49 He, however, notices that this type of diplomacy withered during the Roman period given that other forms of negotiation, including Christian language such as “brother” and “spiritual children,” displaced this form of negotiation.50 As I have sought to demonstrate in the earlier examples, kinship is not just an expression of biological family relations but much broader. Kinship had concrete racial implications in antiquity as it does when Latinx people call one another carnal or carnala. Kinship denotes certain obligations, solidarity, and responsibilities toward others and has the power to bond people across space, time, and perceived racial difference. It emerges to describe the network of family members, near relatives, ancestors, racial communities, and humanity. An appeal to kinship can mitigate political conflicts and encourage one to welcome the foreigner. Kinship language is family language in the narrow sense and racial language in the broadest.51 It is about network solidarity and family bonds between people who may or may not be racially related.

The Family of Jesus in John: The De/construction of Kinship We now turn to the implication for our study of Jesus’s family. Jesus’s mother emerges at the wedding of Cana (John 2:1–12), is mentioned by a crowd (6:42), and appears at the Crucifixion (19:25–27). The text rarely discusses Jesus’s human father; he appears only in passing (1:45; 6:42). Jesus’s brothers appear in Cana and Galilee (2:12; 7:1–10). Although the

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text mentions Jesus’s disciples throughout the gospel, it describes them with kinship language in the Farewell and Passion narrative. John portrays them as orphans (14:18) and fellow brothers (20:17). Strikingly, he describes both believers and the disciples as children (1:12; 11:52; 13:33; 21:5). This section will review these passages and explore their kinship implications as alluded to in the prologue. I believe that the prologue not only anticipates the creation of a new kin, but the gospel’s portrayal of Jesus’s family and disciples also demonstrates how a new family emerges apart from biological relations. This is not a coincidence. The writer develops an identity for the believing community by rooting this kinship theology in Jesus’s family life. That is, the “family” in the gospel is a malleable network bond that binds people together, but can be broken, remade, redefined, and solidified through a new lineage. Not only is this possible, but it also happens in the life of Jesus with his disciples and family. The Mother of Jesus (John 2:1–12; 6:42; 19:25–27) First, some brief comments about the way the narrator portrays Jesus’s mother within the gospel, calling her the “mother of Jesus” (2:1, 3, 5, 12; 6:42; 19:25–27). Jesus mostly calls her “woman” γυνή (2:4; 19:26). Her name “Mary,” known within the Synoptic tradition (Matt 1:16; Mark 6:3; Luke 1:27), appears nowhere in the gospel. Why portray Mary just as a woman and mother, while failing to disclose her name? We are not sure. Various proposals attempt to explain this omission, including the presumption that Mary symbolizes the Old Testament.52 Beverly Gaventa suggests that the description reminds the reader that Jesus was a human being and does not repudiate his family ties.53 Furthermore, when Jesus calls his mother “woman,” the response may seem harsh or inappropriate. Although other instances may convey a hostile tone,54 this is not the gospel’s meaning. Instead, it reflects similar responses to various women such as the Samaritan women (4:21), an unnamed woman caught in adultery (8:10), and Mary Magdalene (20:15). Obviously, Jesus does not disrespect these women. The use of γυνή on the lips of Jesus demonstrates that he considers Mary like all other women—nothing more, nothing less. We also notice this in the description of Mary as “mother” (μήτηρ). Out of the ten times that μήτηρ appears, Jesus never calls Mary his mother but the new mother of the Beloved Disciple (19:26–27). He always calls her γυνή.

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Turning to the wedding episode in Cana, the readers may notice the absence of Jesus’s father. The readers are aware of Joseph’s existence (1:45), but only Mary attends the wedding. The story begins with Mary’s awareness that the host no longer has wine, so she notifies Jesus about this situation. Why she informs Jesus remains unexplained. Campbell suggests that Mary saw Jesus as the most honorable son who could solve the predicament. She turned to him so he would grant honor for himself, his family, and thus enhance his public status.55 Sandro Gallazzi proposes that Mary was aware of this situation because she helped organize the wedding, which also clarifies why she was present before Jesus.56 Gallazzi notices Mary’s authority at the wedding, not just as a mother, but as a woman who saw a need and who could do something about it.57 Although Gallazzi does not mention this, Mary’s authority at the wedding may also explain why she could easily command the servants without objection. Mary approached Jesus because she knew that he could do something, and she had the authority to move people into action. Jesus, however, responds to Mary: “woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come” (2:4). Mary ignores Jesus’s response and concern for his “hour.” She directs the servants, “whatever he says to you do” (v. 5), as if she knew and expected him to do something regardless.58 Did Jesus become aware that his mother placed the servants under his instruction? Did he know that his mother rebuffed his response? Mary may have been gently nudging Jesus to do something by notifying him about this problem. Jesus could not deny his mother’s implicit request. According to Sirach, one would expect Jesus to respect his mother in that culture, no matter what (3:11). Even Jesus receives no exemption from this duty. In seeking to resolve the situation, though, Jesus does not bring public honor to himself. He does not even touch the stone jars, taste the wine, nor tell the host what he is doing. Jesus quietly reveals himself to his disciples, not the wedding guests, master of ceremonies, bride, or groom. None of this would have been possible, though, if Mary had not encouraged Jesus to do something. Mary becomes, as Gallazzi claims, the one who “engendró el principio, el origen de las señales y de la gloria.”59 Although Jesus’s “hour” had yet to come (2:4), the next time Mary appears in the gospel is when his hour emerges at the cross (19:25–27). The “hour” within the gospel refers to the moment of Jesus’s death when his glory would be revealed.60 There were several women at the cross. This includes Mary, her sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. They, along with the Beloved Disciple are present in this scene (19:25–27).

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Jesus speaks to his mother in the presence of them all. He directs her to the Beloved Disciple and says, “woman, behold your son” (v. 26). Likewise, he tells the Beloved Disciple, “behold your mother” (v. 27). This is the only time Jesus calls Mary a “mother,” but not his mother. What is the significance of Jesus’s continual concern with Mary at the cross? Gaventa suggests that Jesus not only is “stripped of his clothing” but also “divests himself of his mother and his Beloved Disciple.”61 Campbell explains it another way. Since Mary remained loyal to Jesus, this would have caused estrangement from her other sons and would have provoked envy among his brothers.62 Jesus thus cannot hand his mother to those who represent “the realm that hate him” but wants her to be with a family of believers.63 Campbell’s reading does have merits. Jesus’s father and brothers are absent from this episode. Mary is on the verge of being alone, like a widow who is losing her only son. Mary, through her faith and kinship bond with Jesus, continues to receive Jesus’s obedience and care. Jesus listens and responds to her. Even at the cross—at his point of death—he does not abandon his devotion to his mother. He still cares about his mother, and she holds an important place within his family. By using his sole authority to expand the family, he includes a new “son” who would continually be there for Mary. Read this way, Jesus’s dialogue with his mother and Beloved Disciple serves not merely as a divesture of Jesus’s earthly family or concern to keep his mother in the realm of believers. Instead, it is a way of forming a new family, a new kinship bond between the Beloved and Mary. More generally, this also means that widows should always receive the care and devotion from the believing community because they too belong to the family. And for the Johannine church, this also includes widows from non-Jewish races. This episode at the cross demonstrates that non-family members can bond together like a mother and son. It also suggests that Jesus’s flesh and blood brothers or human father hold no real power in defining and limiting kinship boundaries or responsibilities. Jesus’s biological brothers and father are supplanted at the cross when Jesus exhorts the Beloved Disciple to receive Mary as if he were receiving a mother. Why elevate the status of the Beloved Disciple, though, at the expense of ignoring the rightful place of Jesus’s biological kin? I will address this question in the next section. But notice that my reading of this interaction recognizes that a new kinship community emerges at the cross by the authority of Jesus’s proclamation. At the cross, Jesus holds the right to pronounce and define his family, the true members of his casa. Jesus expands the family just like when a

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Latino or Latina call someone carnal, carnala, tia, or primo. The prologue anticipates this activity when it describes Jesus holding the authority to legalize the children of God (1:12–13). Kinship bonds are both constructed and deconstructed in the prologue through Jesus’s pronouncement, and they also occur in this story at the cross. Even more, the writer links these episodes with the mention that the disciple took Mary to “his own” home (εἰς τὰ ἴδια) (19:27) and Jesus coming to “his own” (εἰς τὰ ἴδια) home (1:11). Kinship bonds are not unbreakable but malleable enough to include new members. Since this authority first appears in the prologue and John demonstrates it within the gospel story, this also suggests that Jesus can continue this activity for the newly born children of God who also hear the Johannine gospel. The Brothers of Jesus (John 2:12; 7:1–10) The Gospel tradition attests that Jesus had many brothers.64 Matthew and Mark mention their names: James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon (Matt 13:55–56; Mark 6:3). Within the Fourth Gospel, they are nameless and appear in the plural (οἱ ἀδελφοὶ). They first emerge at the wedding in Cana (2:12) when they journey to Capernaum after the wedding. Campbell interprets this journey as evidence that the brothers are fellow believers. She bases this on the notion that the term remain (μένω) corresponds with the term discipleship in the gospel.65 However, one must interpret this passage in 2:12  in context. Only the disciples became aware of Jesus’s miraculous deed and “believed in him” (2:11). Certainly, the text does not mention Jesus’s mother as a someone who witnessed Jesus’s glory or came to faith. It remains difficult to ascertain whether Jesus’s brothers either witnessed the Cana miracle or believed in him, especially when they appear nowhere in the wedding scene until the end. We can best interpret 2:12 as the brothers simply traveling with everyone to Capernaum because the wedding was over. When the brothers emerge in 7:1–10, the situation differs. As the Jewish religious leaders in Judea threaten Jesus’s life, many disciples desert him, and questions arise about his identity. Where does Jesus go for safety considering this hostility? He goes home. The gospel does not reveal how long Jesus stayed in Galilee. Only when the Festival of Tabernacles (Sukkot) was approaching did Jesus’s brothers urge him to leave, speaking in one voice, saying, “move on from here so that your disciples may see the works that you are doing” (v. 3). They further explain that if Jesus wants to be

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known, he should not hide in Galilee but reveal himself to the world (v. 4). While these statements may seem innocuous, the writer explains that the brothers did not believe in Jesus (v. 5). This turns the brothers’ statements into inhospitable remarks—if not mockery—of Jesus’s failure to keep his disciples. Jesus responds by asserting that the “world” cannot hate them, but it hates him because he testifies against the world (v. 7). Jesus further instructs the brothers to go to the festival and not worry about his own public appearance. Eventually, the brothers leave, and Jesus secretly goes to Jerusalem alone (vv. 8–10). Two aspects from the prologue emerge in this episode. First, this encounter between Jesus and his brothers illustrates what the prologue suggests when it claims that Jesus “came to his own but was not received” (1:11). Here we find this point coming to fruition. Jesus comes to his own family—and more specifically, his own brothers in his own hometown— and experiences rejection and ridicule. Of all the people who should have welcomed, defended, and protected Jesus—it should have been his brothers. Instead, they seem to care little about his safety, presence, or situation. This demonstrates that according to the gospel, just because someone is a family member does not mean they are truly family. Second, Jesus’s comments affirm that the world cannot hate his brothers (7:7). Inversely, this suggests that the world loves them, and they belong to it. As members of the world, their kinship bond with Jesus has been redefined. No longer are Jesus’s brothers his fellow kin. The brothers belong to the world, and in this sense, Jesus affirms a certain distance from a kinship relation with him. This also explains why they did not experience enlightenment by Jesus’s presence and identity as the true light. The prologue affirms that the world itself, although made by the Logos, did not know the Logos (1:9–10) and conflicted with the true light (1:5). Like the world, the brothers do not know Jesus and are hostile toward him. As a result, the brothers are not his true family but worldly members. This portrayal of the brothers proves starkly negative. Campbell observes that the gospel characterizes the relationship with conflict, which may include underlying issues of envy and inheritance, especially since Jesus was the older sibling.66 Brotherly rivalry is not new. Jewish literature includes many instances of deception, betrayal, and maneuvering for power between brothers.67 Indeed, the twin brothers Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, vied for power and right to become king. Livy remarks that Romulus eventually killed his brother to attain power.68 Enmity between brothers was not celebrated. Plutarch encourages his

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readers to recognize that brotherly relationships are to be supportive and characterized by devotion one to another. They should not include conflict, slander, envy, or jealousy.69 To hate one’s brother, according to Plutarch, resembles hating one’s own flesh and parents who gave birth to the brother.70 Furthermore, to treat a friend like a brother and a brother like a friend reveals that one is not sane and acts contrary to nature.71 Considering Plutarch’s admonitions, how should we interpret this brief dialogue between Jesus and his brothers? Primarily, it demonstrates the worst possible scenario. Conflict between brothers entails conflict with one’s own parents. A hostile relationship does not remain beyond repair, but Plutarch admits that “when brothers have once broken the bonds of nature, they cannot readily come together, and even if they do, their reconciliation bears with it a filthy hidden sore of suspicion.”72 Perhaps this explains why Jesus’s brothers are nowhere at the cross or at his burial. The tension between Jesus and his brothers was too deep to overcome. Why such negative portrayal of Jesus’s brothers, especially since they served as key members in the leadership of the Early Church? While this issue is not unique to John, it does deserve attention. In fact, James was an important figure who defended the inclusion of Gentiles (Acts 15:13–21). The Pauline letters recount his authority and leadership (1 Cor 15:7; Gal 1:19; 2:9–12). He even wrote a letter to “the twelve tribes in the diaspora” (Jas 1:1), which demonstrates his broad appeal and reach. Furthermore, Jude, another brother of Jesus, is noted as the author of one of the shortest letters within the New Testament. Although Clement of Alexandria believed Jude wrote the letter, contemporary scholars recognize it as falsely attributed to him.73 Jude may seem like a relatively obscure figure, but his grandsons testified before the emperor Domitian and had authority over the churches because, as Eusebius puts it, they were “relatives of the Lord.”74 Even though the brothers of Jesus are his flesh and blood, their portrayal in the gospel demonstrates the fragility of kinship bonds. To further explain this malleability, the Jesus of John’s gospel considers the brothers as members of the world. In this way, their association with the world becomes another way for the gospel to deny their kinship relation with Jesus while affirming the malleability of these bonds. Being in a kinship relation to Jesus provided an ancestral legacy for James, Jude, and Jude’s grandsons. They held positions of leadership and authority over churches. Perhaps the description of the brother’s unbelief was an attempt to guard against the charge of nepotism as Craig Keener suggests.75 While we may not know the true motivations for such

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portrayals, these episodes certainly redraw the boundaries of kinship relations—and by extension, the boundaries of God’s family—and encourage readers to perceive their own brothers not as racial or kinship relatives but either as fellow children of God or potential members of the “world.” The readers are not to privilege or hold any deference to kinship bonds as if they were the most cherished relations. This posture, however, toward one’s kin would run contrary to Plutarch’s exhortations. Plutarch considers those who consider a stranger as a brother as “doing nothing but cutting off voluntarily a limb of his own flesh and blood and taking to himself and joining to his body an extraneous member.”76 Plutarch would not look too kindly upon people who embrace brothers as friends and friends as brothers. Philo, however, would agree on the importance of honoring God more than maintaining the bonds of kinship.77 The real family according to the Johannine narrative consists of those born of God (1:12–13). Family bonds are certainly disrupted, but they are also expanded. They are malleable. Disciples as Children and Orphans (13:33; 14:18; 20:17; 21:5) Although John negatively portrays the brothers of Jesus, this does not mean that Jesus did not care about brotherly relations or that the gospel presumed all brotherly relations would end negatively.78 In order of appearance, the disciples are described as little children “τεκνίον” (13:33), orphans “ὀρφανός” (14:18), brothers “ἀδελφός” (20:17), and again children “παιδίον” (21:5). Furthermore, the gospel does not fail to mention other family relations besides Jesus’s family. A royal official pleads to Jesus for the healing of his son (4:46–49), and the parents of a blind man withstand an interrogation by the Jewish religious leaders (9:2–23). Certain instances exist, however, that call family or ancestor relations into question. Jesus doubts that certain Jewish people are Abraham’s children but instead children of the devil (8:39–44). In another instance, he expands the notion of God’s family by exhorting the Jewish crowd to be “children (υἱοὶ) of the light” (12:36). This exhortation to become “children of the light” may be another way of inviting his hearers to be part of his family, especially since Jesus himself is portrayed throughout the gospel as the “light” (1:5–9; 3:19–21; 8:12; 9:5; 12:35–36, 46). Most references to the disciples as family members appear in the Farewell Discourse (John 13–17). Jesus asserts, “children (τεκνίον), I am with you for only a little while longer” (13:33). Prior to this statement,

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Jesus warns them about his coming death and departure. He had washed the disciples’ feet, predicted his betrayal, and Judas covertly left to betray him. Knowing these things, Jesus turns to his disciples and speaks to them like a father speaking to a child. The term τεκνίον, a rare word in the New Testament, never appears in the Septuagint. It only occurs here and seven times in the Johannine letters (1 John 2:1, 12, 28; 3:7, 18; 4:4; 5:21). Considered an affection term, a diminutive of τέκνον, it is also translated as “children,” “infants,” or “young children.”79 Something more occurs with this portrayal of the disciples as children, though. The readers get a glimpse into how Jesus viewed his disciples as members in the family of God. In antiquity, views of children vary widely. Dixon admits the complexity of ancient Roman attitudes toward young children. There was often a delight in childish characteristics, and some parents had deep affections for their children.80 Other parents did not care much about their children until the children were older. Dixon observes this stark difference to Western society.81 Nonetheless, this does not suggest that children had no social role or responsibility. Dixon notes that ancient Roman culture expected that children would provide for their parents when they reached an old age; maintain the family’s social standing; and inherit the family name, honor, obligations, rituals, and traditions.82 In other words, children symbolized the future continuation of the family and its traditions. Within the writings of Philo, a similar perspective appears. He remarks how barren women longed for children so that the family lineage, inheritance, and honor would continue.83 Illegitimate children would raise suspicion given their access to the family inheritance.84 Philo also comments that parents care for a child similar to how God has mastery over, concern for, and gives life to creation.85 Children by nature reflect their kindred relation to their parents.86 Parents must care for them, not expose or abandon them.87 Philo, however, also notes that calling adults “children” has a negative connotation given that this term portrays adults as having infantile thinking.88 This final point differs from Epictetus who describes the life of the philosopher as one who continually moves from a childhood (τέκνον) state to a mature one.89 Since the prologue in 1:12 states that those who believe in Jesus are given the right to be a “child of God” (τέκνα θεοῦ), clearly the prologue does not have a negative or condescending view of this term. Instead, it rejects the assumption that one is a “child of God” solely due to birth and ancestry relations (1:13). This argument steadily develops, especially after

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Jesus’s discussion with Nicodemus about being born again (3:1–15), after the tense separation between Jesus and his brothers (7:1–11), and after the hostile debate with the Jewish crowds on who truly is a child and descendant of Abraham (8:39–59).90 This leads us to notice that the phrases “children of God” in the prologue and “children” in the Farwell Discourse serve as more than affectionate phrases. They slowly expand the reader’s understanding of proper kinship boundaries and relations. The prologue redefines family relations and thus the identity of God’s true descendants and inheritors of his promises.91 Jesus also views the disciples as potential orphans “ὀρφανός” and promises that they will not be abandoned (14:18–19). Previously, Jesus exhorted the disciples not to allow their “hearts to become troubled” (v. 1) and mentions that if he was to leave to prepare a place for them, this also means he would return (v. 3). The emotional tone of these passages conveys not solely words of a cherished rabbi leaving his disciples but also the notion of child abandonment. In fact, orphans were not solely those who had lost both parents. Even solely losing one’s father would have classified a child as an orphan even though the mother was still alive.92 Many fatherless children existed, given the tendency of men to marry late in life.93 About one-third of all children within the Greco-Roman period would have lost their father by the age of fifteen.94 This condition brought economic disruption, placed one’s inheritance in jeopardy, caused undue hardship and grief for the mother, and led to the possibility of becoming vulnerable to oppression and exploitation.95 These challenges motivated many widows to remarry. Even if their mothers remarried, though, stepfathers were not legally obliged to provide for orphans and were known to rob their inheritance.96 Orphans were truly the most vulnerable in antiquity. Zeus was known to be a god who watched over orphans.97 In Euripides’ Ion, Apollo commissions Hermes to bring the orphan child Ion to the temple at Delphi where a priestess could raise him.98 Biblical literature portrays orphans as defenseless and lacking rights.99 This is notable in the various exhortations to care and protect orphans, especially since they are most susceptible to being oppressed, murdered, sold as slaves, denied justice, and experience theft and financial distress.100 Indeed, God emerges as their surrogate father, protector, promises to hear their cries, and avenge them (Exod 22:22–27; Deut 10:18; Ps 10:14, 17–18; Hos 14:3). As more poignantly described, “He is a father to the fatherless” (Ps 68:5). Although the New Testament rarely mentions orphans, the same command to care for

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orphans is assumed. Jesus demonstrates his ability to raise a dead orphan boy who was the only son of a widow (Luke 7:11–16). James describes true religion as “caring for the orphans and widows in their misfortune” (Jas 1:27). Timothy is exhorted to make sure that the real widows who need assistance are taken care of, which presumes that these widows have orphan children and no extended kin (1 Tim 5:1–16). The reality of being orphaned would have been a vivid metaphor of abandonment for the disciples. In addition to the “children” reference in 13:33, this metaphor provides a new lens for understanding how the kinship boundaries of the family are reimagined and developed—even considering the fate of the disciples akin to the fate of children without fathers. After the Resurrection, Jesus again refers to the disciples as “children” (παιδίον) in 21:5. In this scene, Jesus appears alongside the shore at daybreak and sees the disciples in the boat. He asks, “Children (παιδίον), you do not have any fish, do you?” This is a striking remark, especially since the disciples did not know it was Jesus asking the question. Addressing a group of men who had been fishing all night as “children,” especially when they did not know who was asking, should have given the disciples pause. Yet the disciples do not seem to mind being called “children.” They emphatically reply “no” and continue the conversation (v. 6). This is the only time when the gospel uses παιδίον to describe the disciples, although previously appearing to describe the royal official’s son (4:49) and a newly born infant (16:21)101 Paul rarely uses this word. When he does, it refers to infantile thinking (1 Cor 14:20). Was Jesus really calling these disciples who fished all night “little kids?” It is difficult believing that Jesus would call the disciples a bunch of chamacos, as it would be said in Spanish. But perhaps so. Another use of this term presses us to understand its meaning beyond a literal or pejorative sense. The writer of Hebrews explains that since children share similar flesh and blood, Jesus had to share in the same flesh in order to perfect salvation through his suffering (2:10–18). Who are these children? For the writer of Hebrews, παιδίον refers to those who are sanctified, descendants of Abraham, and fellow believers. They are the people of God. This use of παιδίον also emerges in Isaiah 46:3 where the prophet portrays descendants of Israel as those born and cared for by God since their childhood. Simply interpreting παιδίον as affectionate language misses how the gospel portrays the identity of the disciples as Jesus’s emerging family. This kinship usage should also influence our reading of the Johannine letters when the readers are similarly described (1 John

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2:14, 18). Although Andrew Benko describes these readers of the letters as “the children of the children” and understands this language in terms of a cosmic race,102 this perspective is not far from my reading. As I argue, this language redraws the boundaries of the true member of God’s family—a racialized community that has a new lineage as divinely born children. How then should we understand the portrayal of the disciples, especially in light of the prologue? Primarily, Jesus perceives his disciples as his fellow kin. This notifies the readers of the family of God emerging within the gospel and Jesus actively calling forth its members. Another aspect becomes noticeable, though. Jesus not only views the disciples as children but also places himself in the position of their father and considers them his offspring and heirs. Obviously, Jesus was neither married nor had any biological children of his own and he later calls them his own brothers (20:17). Yet this way of portraying the disciples as children may reflect the relationship between a rabbi and a disciple.103 By describing Jesus’s own followers as “children,” the promise for a family alluded to in the prologue slowly materializes. This would have greatly resonated with the readers who also understand the importance and value of the family. This would not have been new for Roman readers. Indeed, this family language also describes the relationship between Romulus, the first Roman king, and his soldiers. According to Livy, when Romulus ascended into heaven, the Roman soldiers are described as “filled with the fear of orphanhood.”104 For a brief moment, sadness gripped their hearts. But then some recognize that Romulus had been taken up into heaven and asked for blessings upon them as his “children,” especially since Romulus was the “king and father of the Roman city.”105 In addition, the Romans did not look kindly upon celibate bachelors, as Augustus’s imperial decrees, Lex Julia of 18 BCE and Lex Papia et Poppaea in 9 CE, demonstrate.106 Plutarch even remarks that a celibate brother would have caused much trouble on the family.107 But Jesus, although never married and having strained relations with his brothers, takes an active role in continuing the family lineage by calling forth its members. This provides the underlying significance of calling the disciples “children” and “orphans.” Hints exist as well that readers also view themselves as part of Jesus’s family. This is found when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead (11:45). The religious leaders discuss the implications of this miracle among each other (vv. 46–47). Eventually, they conclude that if Jesus continues doing miracles, many more people would eventually believe the Romans would take

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notice. For some reason, they assume that faith in Jesus would lead to a hostile reaction from the Roman authorities. To prevent this outcome, Caiaphas asserts that it would be better for one person to die for the people (λαός) than the entire nation (ἔθνος) destroyed (v. 50). The writer of the gospel interprets Caiaphas’s statement as a prophecy (vv. 51–52). That is, Jesus would indeed die for the Jewish people (ἔθνους), but not just the people only but also all the children of God (τὰ τέκνα τοῦ θεοῦ) among the diaspora. As noticed earlier, describing the disciples as children and orphans is laced in kinship imagery. Jesus not only anticipated to die for the Jewish race, but for all God’s children who may or may not be Jewish. The non-­ Jewish reader comes to know that these children (τέκνον) in the diaspora would include themselves, especially since the prologue in 1:12 had already pointed to the emergence of children not linked to a particular apical ancestor. The gospel is using family language to expand the boundaries of the reader’s kinship imagination, those who may or may not share a similar racial identity with each other. The Disciples and Community as a “Brotherhood” (20:17; 21:23) When Jesus meets Mary Magdalene in the Garden near the tomb, he tells her, “go to my brothers [ἀδελφούς μου] and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’” (20:17). We would assume that this referred to Jesus’s biological brothers who last appeared in 7:1–10. However, Jesus’s relationship with his brothers had ruptured by this point in the narrative. They were nowhere near the cross when Jesus died, nor did they concern themselves to give his body a proper burial. Mary Magdalene, not oblivious to their absence, also stood at the cross and would have heard Jesus tell his mother and Beloved Disciple to embrace one another as mother and son (19:25–27). Without hesitancy, Mary Magdalene does as Jesus asks and tells the disciples that she had “seen the Lord” (20:18). Mary Magdalene understood the “brothers” as the disciples Jesus wanted her to find. For the first time in the gospel, the disciples of Jesus are not just his friends as previously mentioned (15:13–15); they had become “brothers.” Mary Magdalene recognized this. She knew exactly who to go and deliver the news to about Jesus’s resurrection. The Fourth Gospel is not the only one to record this affirmation and change of the disciples’ status. Jesus calls the disciples “brothers” to the

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women at the tomb in Matthew 28:1–10. In Matthew’s gospel, Mary Magdalene and Mary suddenly encounter Jesus on their journey from the tomb (v. 9). Jesus says, “Go and tell my brothers (ἀδελφοῖς μου) to go to Galilee, and there they will see me” (v. 10). Although Matthew’s account does not describe who the women met, later in the narrative the disciples appear in Galilee as directed (v. 16). Matthew’s gospel makes the connection, just like the gospel of John, that the brothers of Jesus are the disciples. The gospel John, however, adds another dynamic. The disciples are not only the brothers of Jesus but members of God’s family, where Jesus’s God is also their God, and Jesus’s Father is their “Father.” Raymond Brown explains that the ascension makes it possible for God to become the Father of the disciples and Jesus their brother.108 He points to Romans 8:29 and Hebrews 2:9–10 where a similar mention of “brothers” or “sons” emerges.109 Juan Mateos and Juan Barreto understand the relationship between Jesus and the disciples a bit differently. They notice that this relationship is an “amor fraterno,” given that Jesus does not elevate His status above them. Jesus recognizes that his “amigos son también sus hermanos.”110 Certainly, Jesus’s resurrection and the disciples’ change of status from “friends” in 15:13–15 to “brothers” in 20:17 remains essential. When Jesus mentions that he and the disciples have the same God and Father, this statement echoes what Ruth tells Naomi: “your people will be my people and your God my God” (Ruth 1:16). Brown mentions this passage in Ruth as a statement of identification but does not explore its kinship significance.111 We must notice that Ruth was prepared to leave her homeland, racial community, and religious identity. She was willing to divest herself of her family to embrace Naomi’s people, faith, and homeland as her own. In a similar fashion, Jesus too is affirming the disciples as members of his family, his community, and as in a divine kinship with God as their Father (although this statement may seem difficult to reconcile with later Christian Trinitarian theology). The point remains that Jesus describes the family of God. Jesus is not only the Lord but also their brother with the same Father and God. Jesus’s pronouncement affirms the newly instituted kinship community, an affirmation legitimizing and describing the members in the family of God. Strikingly, in John 21:23, the community of the Beloved Disciple is described as “brothers” (ἀδελφός). The writer narrates an episode where Jesus talks to Peter about the type of death he would die (21:18–19). When Peter inquires as to the type of death for the Beloved Disciple, some

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within the “brothers” misunderstand, believing that the Beloved Disciple would remain alive until Jesus’s return. The writer explains that this is not what Jesus meant although a false rumor spreads among the “brothers” (v. 23). Who are these “brothers?” Brown notices that “brothers” applies here to the Christians of the Johannine community,112 indeed a clear reference to a community that preserved the memory of the Beloved Disciple. But this community was not solely comprised of male figures. Throughout the New Testament, this term is often considered gender inclusive, translated as “brothers and sisters.”113 While various interpretations may attempt to mitigate the potential masculine preferred way of defining the Johannine members, we must notice, however, that nowhere does Jesus call the women also present at the cross and with the disciples as “sisters.” It is not as if no Greek word exists for the designation (ἀδελφή). The gospel, while trying to have a broader notion of kinship relations, still thinks of the family through a patriarchal lens. We, however, must not simply define the family of God through masculine terminology but push toward a more inclusive notion of the family, even in places where the language falls short.

Conclusion When my wife and I lived in the rural city of Durham, North Carolina, we rarely found another Latinx person. But when we did, there was a sense of shared kinship because of our common racial identity. Finding a small Mexican restaurant, Azteca Grill, hidden across the street from a Food Lion grocery store, gave us a sense of home. We could walk into this Mexican restaurant and know that we belonged there. The language, menu, and sounds of the restaurant recalled all the warm experiences of our Latinx community in Southern California. Although we were not biologically related to the cook, waitress, or owner, they felt like family because of our common racial identity. My anxiety, stress, and fears abated whenever I walked into this Mexican restaurant. This is what a family does—it bonds people together. From my Latino perspective, being a member of the family signifies solidarity between people—whether or not one is biologically related. Kinship networks have the capacity for further expansion. At the same time, though, the movement of the network could go the other way toward exclusion and rejection. The family can provide a place where both dynamics emerge—where one is included because of a shared myth of descent, culture, language, or other racial identity markers.

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But it can also be a place where the most difficult experiences of rejection, abandonment, and expulsion emerge. The family, in a sense, serves as the epicenter of our relational experiences with others. We can join the family, become the family, leave the family, or be pushed out from the family. The boundaries of the family network are not permanent. Ebbs and flows to the family network take place. Throughout my life, some friends were closer to me than my brothers, and various male Latino mentors bonded to me like a father. In fact, I do not think I would have been where I am at without the various Latino men in my life who had become a father to me through their mentorship. The prologue anticipates the disruption of kinship relations, or as also described, the family network. In the gospel, Jesus’s relations with his family life are broken, expanded, and redefined throughout the various encounters with his own biological kin and disciples. The gospel writer portrays the mother of Jesus and the disciples as part of God’s new and emerging family. This new understanding of God’s family also bleeds into the life of the readers, who are also learning how they must understand their own relationships with Jesus and each other. The readers are part of God’s family as “children” because, as the prologue anticipates, they are “born of God” (1:12). The prologue anticipates a new lineage of descent, yet it not only gives the readers a preview of the gospel—it sets the tone for understanding and the expanding kinship boundaries. For this new kinship network to emerge and succeed, the traditional family relations and loyalties bound by flesh and blood must experience disruption. In a way, Jesus’s expansionary hope for a new family results from the tragic loss and pain that occurred as a rejected member of his own family. Jesus has an absent human father, Joseph, who appears nowhere in the narrative. Jesus’s brothers not only reject him, but they also fail to defend and honor him with a proper burial. Perhaps Jesus calls the disciples “orphans” (14:18) because he too knew what it meant to feel abandoned. Yet Jesus’s tragic family story does not mean that all family relations will have such endings. Jesus listens to and cares for his mother, and he is eager to let his new brothers know that he has risen from the dead. The family still matters for Jesus—and his family members are the first people he looks for after the resurrection. The portrayal of the disciples with this family language explains and justifies the inclusion of people who have no kinship or racial relationship with one another in the emerging Christian community. Said differently, John’s gospel broadens notions of the family—and by extension all kinship and race relations the readers inhabit. The only ritual

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required to join this family is to believe in Jesus—to have faith. Through this expansive notion of the family, Jesus emerges as a fellow family member, one who knows the loss and joy that come from being within this network. He is a brother who knows what it means to lose one’s brother, one’s father, and one’s mother. He is the reason why the new family network remains possible. Because of Jesus, believers are all fellow kinship members joined together in the family as the children of God.

Notes 1. Panos Bardis, “A Familism Scale,” Marriage and Family Living 21, no. 4 (1959): 340. 2. Ada Maria Isasi-Díaz, Mujerista Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1996), 139–140. 3. Isasi-Díaz, Mujerista, 140. 4. Ana Cauce and Melanie Domenesh-Rodriguez, “Latino Families: Myths and Realities,” in Latino Children and Families in the United States: Current Research and Future Directions, ed. J.  Contreras, A.  NealBarnett, and K. Kerns (Connecticut: Praeger, 2002), 12–14. 5. Paul R.  Smokowski, Mimi V.  Chapman, and Martica L.  Bacallao, “Acculturation Risk and Protective Factors and Mental Health Symptoms in Immigrant Latino Adolescents,” Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment 16.3 (2008): 33–55; Traci Kennedy and Rosario Ceballo, “Latino Adolescents’ Community Violence Exposure: Afterschool Activities and Familismo as Risk and Protective Factors,” Social Development 22.4 (2013): 663–682; Kim Campos, “Incorporating the Cultural Diversity of Family and Close Relationships into the Study of Health,” American Psychologist 72.6 (2017): 543–554; Brandy PiñaWatson, Lizette Ojeda, Nancy E. Castellon, and Marianela Dornhecker, “Familismo, Ethnic Identity, and Bicultural Stress as Predictors of Mexican American Adolescents’ Positive Psychological Functioning,” Journal of Latina/o Psychology 1.4 (2013): 204–217. 6. Brandy Piña-Watson, Iliana M. Gonzalez, and Gabriela Manzo, “Mexican-­ Descent Adolescent Resilience through Familismo in the Context of Intergeneration Acculturation Conflict on Depressive Symptoms,” Translational Issues in Psychological Science 5.4 (2019): 326–334. 7. Valerie Torres, “La Familia as Locus Theologicus and Religious Education in Lo Cotidiano [Daily Life],” Religious Education 105.4 (2010): 444–461. 8. Ken Crane, Latino Churches: Faith, Family, and Ethnicity in the Second Generation (New York: LFB, 2003), 179–180.

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9. Justo Gonzalez, Santa Biblia: The Bible through Spanish Eyes (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 110. 10. P. G. W. Glare, ed., “Familia,” Oxford Latin Dictionary, 675. 11. Suzanne Dixon, The Roman Family (Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1992), 1–2; Keith Bradley, Discovering the Roman Family (New York: Oxford, 1991), 4. 12. Dixon, Roman, 3. 13. There are many differences and similarities between the NIV, NRSV, and NASB. The NIV translates the phrase “πρὸς τοὺς σούς” (Mark 3:21), “οἱ παρ’ αὐτοῦ” (Mark 5:19), and “οἱ αὐτοῦ πάντες” (Acts 16:33) as “family.” It also interprets “family” from οἶκος: Luke 9:61; 12:52; John 8:35; Acts 10:2; 1 Tim 3:4–5; 5:4; Heb 11:7; 1 Pet 4:17; οἰκεῖος: Gal 6:10; 1 Tim 5:8; σπέρμα: John 7:42, γένος: Acts 4:6; 7:13, συγγενής: Acts 7:14; πανοικεὶ: Acts 16:34; and πατριά: Eph 3:15. The NRSV also translates the phrase “πρὸς τοὺς σούς” (Mark 3:21), “οἱ αὐτοῦ πάντες” (Acts 16:33), and “τοὺς ἐκ τῶν” (Rom 16:10–11) as “family.” It also interprets “family” from πατριά: Luke 2:4; γένος: Acts 4:6; 7:13; 13:26; ἀδελφός: Matt 25:40; Rom 8:29; 1 Cor 8:12; Gal 1:2; οἰκεῖος: Gal 6:10; 1 Tim 5:8; πατριά: Eph 3:15; οἶκος: 1 Tim 5:4; ἀδελφότης: 2 Pet 2:17. The NASB interprets “family” from πατριά: Luke 2:4; Eph 3:15; γένος: Acts 7:13; 13:26; and οἶκος: 1 Tim 5:4. 14. Gianna Pomata argues that since Aristotle, the blood was considered to be the source of semen and contributed to the birth of children. See “Blood Ties and Semen Ties: Consanguinity and Agnation in Roman Law,” in Gender, Kinship, Power: A Comparative and Interdisciplinary History, ed. Mary Maynes, Ann Waltner, et  al. (New York: Routledge, 1996): 43–64. 15. Rodolfo Galvan Estrada III, A Pneumatology of Race in the Gospel of John: An Ethnocritical Study (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2019), 130–151. 16. Diodorus, 17.1.5; 17.4.1; Plutarch, Alex. 2.1–2; Velleius Paterculus, The Roman History, 1.5. 17. Livy, Hist. 1.3.5. 18. Livy, Hist. 1. Intro. 7–9. 19. Virgil, Aen. 1.280–285. 20. Fernando Segovia, “John 1:1–18 As Entrée into Johannine Reality Representation Ramifications,” in Word, Theology, and Community in John (St. Louis: Chalice, 2002), 54; Susan Treggiari, “Family,” in The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization, ed. Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth (New York: Oxford, 2014), 302; Shaye Cohen also points out that the matrilineal principle is first attested in the Mishnah and not yet known in Second Temple Judaism in, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (Berkley: University of

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California, 1999), 273; Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, “The Father, the Phallus, and the Seminal Word: Dilemmas of Patrilineality in Ancient Judaism,” in Gender, Kinship, Power: A Comparative and Interdisciplinary History, ed. Mary Maynes, Ann Waltner, et  al. (New York: Routledge, 1996), 28. 21. Alison Jasper, The Shining Garment of the Text: Gendered Reading of John’s Prologue (Sheffield, UK: 1998), 194. 22. Jasper, Shining, 195. 23. Bruce Malina, The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 82. 24. Malina, New Testament World, 214–215. 25. Joan Campbell, Kinship Relations in the Gospel of John (Washington DC: Catholic University of America, 2007), 1–5. 26. David Schneider, A Critique of the Study of Kinship (MI: University of Michigan, 1984), 175. 27. Schneider, Critique, 193. 28. Christopher Jones, Kinship Diplomacy in the Ancient World (MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 2–3. 29. Caroline Johnson Hodge, If Sons, Then Heirs: A Study of Kinship and Ethnicity in the Letters of Paul (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 15. 30. BDAG, “συγγενής, 772; Wilhelm Michaelis, “συγγενής, συγγένεια,” TDNT 7:736–742. 31. Philo, Mos. 2.8. 32. Philo, Spec. 4.19. 33. Philo, Virt. 1.102. 34. Philo, Virt. 1.103, 179; Spec. 1.52. 35. Philo, Spec. 1.315–317. 36. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.1; 3.11. 37. Cicero, Off. 1.53. 38. Cicero, Off. 1.54. 39. Cicero, Off. 1.55. 40. Diodorus, 17.96.1–3. 41. Herodotus, Hist. 7.150. 42. Aeschylus, Pers. 176–199. 43. Apollodorus, Library, 2.4; Pindar, Pyth. 10.30–49; 12:5–20. 44. Josephus, Ant. 12.224–228. 45. Josephus, Ant. 13.163–170. 46. Josephus, Ant. 13.170. 47. Erich Gruen, Rethinking the Other in Antiquity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), 253. 48. Gruen, Rethinking, 257.

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49. Jones, Kinship, 133–134. 50. Jones, Kinship, 135–136. 51. Estrada, Pneumatology of Race, 180–181; David deSilva, Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 164–165. 52. Juan Mateos and Juan Barreto, El Evangelio de Juan: Analisis Lingüistico y Comentario Exegetico (Madrid, España: Ediciones Cristiandad, 1982), 148; Robert Maccini, Her Testimony is True: Women as Witnesses according to John (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic, 1996), 100–102; Secundino Castro Sánchez, Evangelio de Juan (España: Desclée De Brouwer, 2008), 71; Salvador Alday, El Evangelio Según San Juan (España: Verbo Divino, 2010), 128. 53. Beverly Gaventa, Mary: Glimpses of the Mother of Jesus (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina, 1995), 80–88. 54. T. Jos. 5.2; T. Job 24.9. 55. Campbell, Kinship, 121–127. 56. Sandro Gallazzi, “Maria: La Mujer, La Hora y La Gloria,” RIBLA 46 (2003): 48. 57. Gallazzi, “Maria,” 50. 58. Alday, San Juan, 129. 59. Gallazzi, “Maria,” 51. 60. John 4:21, 23; 5:25–28; 7:30; 8:20; 12:23–33; 13:1; 16:32; 17:1. 61. Gaventa, Mary, 91. 62. Campbell, Kinship, 146–147. 63. Campbell, Kinship, 147. 64. Matt 12:46–50; 13:55–56; Mark 3:31–35; 6:3; Luke 8:19–21. 65. Campbell, Kinship, 58. 66. Campbell, Kinship, 149–151. 67. Cain and Abel: Gen 4:1–16; Jacob and Esau: Gen 25–35; Joseph and his brothers: Gen 37–46. 68. Livy, Hist. 1.6. 69. Plutarch, Frat. amor. 1.2. 70. Plutarch, Frat. amor. 1.5–6. 71. Plutarch, Frat. amor. 1.3. 72. Plutarch, Frat. amor. 1.7. 73. Clement of Alexandria, Frag. 2.1; Strom. 3.2.11; Paed. 3.8.44; A post-­ apostolic authorship is made from v. 17, which presumes at least one generation after the apostles. Origen (Comm. Matt. 10.17) and Tertullian (Cult. Fem. 1.3) who demonstrate an awareness of the letter by the late second century. 74. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.19–20 [esp. 3.20.8]. 75. Craig Keener, The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2003), 705.

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76. Plutarch, Frat. amor. 1.3. 77. Philo, Spec. 1.315–317. 78. Andrew is described as Simon Peter’s brother (1:40–41; 6:8); Lazarus is the brother of Mary and Martha and who Jesus loved (11:2–3, 5, 19–23, 32, 36). 79. Philo, Fug. 1.40; “Τεκνίον,” BDAG, 808; John Carson Stube, A Graeco-­ Roman Rhetorical Reading of the Farewell Discourse (New York: T&T Clark, 2006), 98. 80. Dixon, Roman, 107. 81. Dixon, Roman, 107–108. 82. Dixon, Roman, 108–111. 83. Philo, Mos. 1.13; Spec. 3.113. 84. Philo, Decal. 1.128; Mut. 1:147. 85. Philo, Opif. 1.171; Spec. 2.225, 233. 86. Philo, Mut. 1:147. 87. Philo, Spec. 3.110–119. 88. Philo, Sobr. 1.10–11. 89. Epictetus, Discourses, 3: “By these means, even when we are grown up, we appear children. For an unmusical person is a child in music; an illiterate person, a child in learning; and an untaught one, a child in life.” 90. Estrada, Pneumatology of Race, 230–234. 91. See a similar use in T. Reu. 1.3–5; 2.1; 3.8; 4.1; 5.1; T. Sim. 2.1; 3.1; 7.1–3; T. Levi 10.113.1–5; 14.1. 92. J.  T. Fitzgerald, “Orphans in Mediterranean Antiquity and Early Christianity,” Acta Theologica 36.23 (2016): 30. 93. Sabine Hübner and David Ratzan, “Fatherless Antiquity? Perspectives on ‘Fatherlessness’ in the Ancient Mediterranean,” in Growing up Fatherless in Antiquity, ed. Sabine Hübner and David Ratzan (New York: Cambridge University, 2009), 9. 94. Walter Scheidel, “The Demographic Background,” in Growing up Fatherless in Antiquity, ed. Sabine Hübner and David Ratzan (New York: Cambridge University, 2009), 31–40. 95. Hübner and Ratzan, “Fatherless,” 10–13. 96. Sabine Hübner, “Callirhoe’s Dilemma: Remarriage and Stepfathers in the Greco-Roman East,” in Growing up Fatherless in Antiquity, ed. Sabine Hübner and David Ratzan (New York: Cambridge University, 2009), 64–67, 81. 97. Hesiod, Op. 327–334. 98. Euripides, Ion, 25–35. 99. Marcus Sigismund, “‘Without Father, without Mother, without Genealogy’: Fatherlessness in the Old and New Testament,” in Growing up Fatherless in Antiquity, ed. Sabine Hübner and David Ratzan (New York: Cambridge, 2009), 87.

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100. Exod 22:22; Deut 10:18; 14:28–29; 24:17–22; 26:12–13; 27:19; 2 Kgs 4:1; Job 24:9; 29:12; 31:17–22; Ps 94:6; Prov 23:10; Isa 1:17, 23; Jer 5:28; 7:6; 22:3; Ezek 22:7; Zech 7:10; Mal 3:5. 101. See Matt 2:8–9, 11, 13–14, 20–21; Luke 1:59, 66, 76, 80; 2:17, 27, 40. 102. Andrew Benko, Race in John’s Gospel: Toward an Ethnos-Conscious Approach (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2019), 217–224. 103. See Sifre Deut. 34.5; Matt 23:8. 104. Livy, 1.16.2. 105. Livy, 1.16.3. 106. Julius Paulus, Opin. 2.26.1–8, 10–12, 14–17; Tacitus, Ann. 3.25; Suetonius, Aug. 34; Dio Cassius, Hist. rom. 54.16.1–2. 107. Plutarch, Frat. amor. 1.21. 108. Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John 13-21 (New York: Doubleday, 1970), 1016. 109. Brown, John 13–21, 1016. 110. Mateos y Barreto, El Evangelio de Juan, 858. 111. Brown, John 13–21, 1016. 112. Brown, John 13–21, 1110. 113. See Jas 1:2, 16; 2 Pet 1:10; 3 John 1:5; Rev 6:11; 12:10; 19:10; 22:9.

References Alday, Salvador Carrillo. El Evangelio Según San Juan. Editorial Verbo Divino, 2010. Bardis, Panos “A Familism Scale.” Marriage and Family Living 21.4 (1959): 340–341. Bauer, W., F. W. Danker, W. F. Arndt, and F. W. Gingrich. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 3rd edition. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 1999. Benko, Andrew. Race in John’s Gospel: Toward an Ethnos-Conscious Approach. Lanham, MD: Fortress Press, 2019. Bradley, Keith. Discovering the Roman Family. New York: Oxford, 1991. Brown, Raymond. The Gospel According to John 13-21. New York: Doubleday, 1970. Campbell, Joan. Kinship Relations in the Gospel of John. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 2007. Campos, Kim. “Incorporating the Cultural Diversity of Family and Close Relationships into the Study of Health.” American Psychologist 72.6 (2017): 543–554. Cauce, Ana and Melanie Domenesh-Rodriguez. “Latino Families: Myths and Realities.” Pages 3–25  in Latino Children and Families in the United States: Current Research and Future Directions. Edited by J.  Contreras, A.  Neal-­ Barnett, and K. Kerns. Connecticut: Praeger, 2002.

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Cohen, Shaye. The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties. Berkley, CA: University of California, 1999. Crane, Ken. Latino Churches: Faith, Family, and Ethnicity in the Second Generation. New York: LFB, 2003. deSilva, David. Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000. Dixon, Suzanne. The Roman Family. Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1992. Estrada, Rodolfo. A Pneumatology of Race in the Gospel of John: An Ethnocritical Study. Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2019. Fitzgerald, J.  T. “Orphans in Mediterranean Antiquity and Early Christianity.” Acta Theologica 36.23 (2016): 29–48. Gallazzi, Sandro, “Maria: La Mujer, La Hora y La Gloria.” Revista de Interpretación Bíblica Latinoamericana 46 (2003): 47–52. Gaventa, Beverly. Mary: Glimpses of the Mother of Jesus. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina, 1995. Glare, P. G. W. ed. “Familia.” Pages 674–675 in Latin Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University, 1983. Gonzalez, Justo. Santa Biblia: The Bible through Spanish Eyes. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1996. Gruen, Erich. Rethinking the Other in Antiquity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011. Hodge, Caroline Johnson. If Sons, Then Heirs: A Study of Kinship and Ethnicity in the Letters of Paul. New York: Oxford, 2007. Hübner, Sabine and David Ratzan. “Fatherless Antiquity? Perspectives on ‘Fatherlessness’ in the Ancient Mediterranean.” Pages 3–28  in Growing up Fatherless in Antiquity. Edited by Sabine Hübner and David Ratzan. New York: Cambridge, 2009. Hübner, Sabine. “Callirhoe’s Dilemma: Remarriage and Stepfathers in the Greco-­ Roman East.” Pages 61–82 in Growing up Fatherless in Antiquity. Edited by Sabine Hübner and David Ratzan. New York: Cambridge, 2009. Isasi-Díaz, Ada María. Mujerista Theology. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1996. Jasper, Alison. The Shining Garment of the Text: Gendered Reading of John’s Prologue. England: Sheffield Academic, 1998. Jones, Christopher. Kinship Diplomacy in the Ancient World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. Keener, Craig. The Gospel of John: A Commentary. Vols. 1–2. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003. Kennedy, Traci, and Rosario Ceballo. “Latino Adolescents’ Community Violence Exposure: Afterschool Activities and Familismo as Risk and Protective Factors.” Social Development 22.4 (2013): 663–682. Kittel, G., and G.  Friedrich, eds. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Translated by G.  W. Bromiley. 10 vols. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964–1976.

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Maccini, Robert. Her Testimony Is True: Women as Witnesses according to John. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1996. Malina, Bruce. The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001. Mateos, Juan, y Juan Barreto. El Evangelio de Juan: Análisis Lingüístico Y Comentario Exegético. Madrid: Ediciones Cristiandad, 1982. Piña-Watson, Brandy, et al.. “Familismo, Ethnic Identity, and Bicultural Stress as Predictors of Mexican American Adolescents’ Positive Psychological Functioning.” Journal of Latina/o Psychology 1.4 (2013): 204–217. Piña-Watson, Brandy, Iliana M.  Gonzalez, and Gabriela Manzo. “Mexican-­ Descent Adolescent Resilience through Familismo in the Context of Intergeneration Acculturation Conflict on Depressive Symptoms.” Translational Issues in Psychological Science 5.4 (2019): 326–334. Pomata, Gianna. “Blood Ties and Semen Ties: Consanguinity and Agnation in Roman Law.” Pages 43–64  in Gender, Kinship, Power: A Comparative and Interdisciplinary History. Edited by Mary Maynes, Ann Waltner, et  al. New York: Routledge, 1996. Sánchez, Secundino Castro. Evangelio de Juan. España: Desclée De Brouwer, 2008. Schneider, David. A Critique of the Study of Kinship. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, 1984. Segovia, Fernando. “John 1:1–18 As Entrée into Johannine Reality Representation Ramifications.” Pages 33–64 in Word, Theology, and Community in John. Edited by Fernando F.  Segovia, John Painter, and R.  Culpepper. St. Louis: Chalice, 2002. Sigismund, Marcus. “‘Without Father, without Mother, without Genealogy’: Fatherlessness in the Old and New Testament.” Pages 83–102 in Growing up Fatherless in Antiquity. Edited by Sabine Hübner and David Ratzan. New York: Cambridge, 2009. Smokowski, Paul, Mimi V.  Chapman, and Martica L.  Bacallao. “Acculturation Risk and Protective Factors and Mental Health Symptoms in Immigrant Latino Adolescents.” Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment 16.3 (2008): 33–55. Stube, John Carson. A Graeco-Roman Rhetorical Reading of the Farewell Discourse. New York: T&T Clark, 2006. Torres, Valerie. “La Familia as Locus Theologicus and Religious Education in Lo Cotidiano [Daily Life].” Religious Education 105.4 (2010): 444–461. Treggiari, Susan. “Family.” Pages 302–303 in The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization. Edited by Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth. New York: Oxford, 2014.

CHAPTER 6

The Prologue and Race: La Raza Cósmica

It was in 1925, during a context of racial segregation in the U.S., when José Vasconcelos published a book called La Raza Cósmica. His work developed the notion of a national mestizo identity for Latin Americans in Mexico.1 He believed that mestizo Mexicans were chosen to inaugurate this new era of humanity and create a fifth race—a cosmic race.2 He states, The Yankees will end up building the last great empire of a single race, the final empire of White supremacy. Meanwhile, we will continue to suffer the vast chaos of an ethnic stock in formation, contaminated by the fermentation of all types, but secure of the avatar into a better race. … what is going to emerge out there is the definitive race, the synthetical race, the integral race, made up of the genius and the blood of all peoples and, for that reason, more capable of true brotherhood and of a truly universal vision.3

Vasconcelos proposed that the mestizo race would be a fusion of all races that could bring unity, love, and a better humanity. He viewed racial mixture positively during a time when it was despised by Americans.4 Vasconcelos’s proposal, however, came with its own problems and perpetuated racist ideologies.5 Championing a “cosmic” mestizo race also meant that all indigenous people, especially those who resist the mestizo project, were by nature inferior. While having good intentions, Vasconcelos promoted another form of racial supremacy. He uses the term mestizo to describe the Latin American © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Galvan Estrada III, A Latino Reading of Race, Kinship, and the Empire, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20305-3_6

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people. The word is Spanish for “mixed,” which generally refers to the racially mixed European and indigenous ancestry of Mexicans. Unfortunately, this term has a history of oppression, violence, and racist undertones toward indigenous and Afro-Mexican communities in Mexico.6 Indeed, Laura Gómez remarks that Vasconcelos’s mestizo ideology as a state policy in Mexico presupposed the elimination of all indigenous racial groups. It operated “to mask white supremacy and conceal racial subordination in Mexico of indigenous people and Afro-Mexicanos.”7 As Gómez finds, Mexico’s indigenous peoples were hoped to disappear and become subsumed into mestizos/as.8 Plainly, Vasconcelos’s ideology was anti-Black and anti-indigenous. Refusal to participate in this racial project was, as they say in Latin American culture, a refusal to mejorar la raza (improve the race). Latinx theologians and Chicanos in the U.S., including myself,9 received Vasconcelos’s mestizo ideology differently. They utilize this term to bring value to the negative connotations of their racially mixed status. It was Virgilio Elizondo who drew upon this identity in order to explain the Mexican American experience and identity of Jesus as a Galilean. For Elizondo, Mexican Americans accepted the mestizo identity as a way of reversing its negative stigma.10 He found the mestizo experience akin to the identity and region of the Galileans who were racially mixed, culturally diverse, and regarded inferior by Jerusalem Jews.11 Likewise, Ada María Isasi-Díaz understood both mestizaje and mulatez as a way of culturally, theologically, and racially situating Latinos in the U.S.: “this is the structure in which we operate, from which we reach out to explain who we are and to contribute to how theology and religion are understood in this society in which we live.”12 A mestizo identity also appears in Justo Gonzalez’s reading of the Bible and theology. He proposes that this theme helps one draw out new biblical interpretations with a sensitivity to those in between two cultures, mixed identities, or marginalization.13 And Robert Chao Romero uses mestizo to define the identity of all Brown people and experiences of a Galilean Jesus.14 He positively elevates this term by saying “our mestizaje has only grown more beautiful and intense the centuries” and “rather than a badge of shame, we celebrate our cultural diversity as a gift from God—our gift to the world.”15 As the aforementioned scholars demonstrate, the Latinx use of mestizo redeems an identity that has been historically considered racially inferior. In fact, Rubén Rosario Rodríguez, Hanna Kang, and Daniel Álvarez recognize the benefits of using this term. Rodriguez suggests that the mestizo

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metaphor can serve as a transcultural paradigm for resisting racism.16 Kang points out that the term must be broad enough to include Asian communities, given that they, too, belong to this story of racial mixture in Latin America since 1847.17 And Álvarez suggests that the Latinx people are characterized as people who are mestizo but with a hybrid identity.18 The term mestizo, however, has come under scrutiny—criticized as a racist tool of the empire.19 Néstor Medina draws attention to the complicated and historical implications of mestizo in Latinx theology. He understands why this term was utilized by Latinx theologians and how it became a way of resisting the U.S. attempt to erase their cultural heritage.20 He insists, however, that the mestizo concept has been uncritically utilized as a symbol of racial inclusion. As he suggests, it has a historical baggage of violence, exclusion, and hides racism among U.S. Latinxs.21 Are Latinx theologians who champion a mestizo identity promoting a racist agenda? Certainly not intentionally, but possibly. The mestizo hermeneutical framework operates in the U.S. in a way different from Latin American countries. Latinx hermeneutics occurs in a context of White supremacy, an ideology that values biological and racial purity. Although we may utilize a mestizo hermeneutical lens, we cannot exclude the implications of the term and its dark history. There are, as Jorge Aquino finds, risks and rewards with this identity.22 The language can affirm yet at the same time dehumanize, depending upon the context and utilization. An uncritical use of this identity can lead one to become that which one despises and change from the role of oppressed to that of oppressor. We cannot ignore how a segment of Latinx and Latin American people have participated, condoned, remained indifferent, and stood to benefit from whiteness and from dehumanizing ideologies.23 This has been true in the past and true today in a post-Trump presidency where some Latinx people (including Christians) still continue to support anti-immigrant and racist politicians in the U.S. Republican party. Why do I introduce this chapter by exploring the implications of mestizo within Latinx theology and Latin American racial discourse? Simply put, because the way of thinking about race and racial rhetoric within Vasconcelos’s writing can provide insights into our exploration of the same topic in antiquity. His failure to understand the implication of racial rhetoric teaches us an important lesson. Specifically, racial discourse does not always begin with racist roots or intentions. It may seem innocent or neutral at first, and we may not see the racist implications of our views at the moment. But given time, any embedded racism or racist implications

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of our language will surface. But I also want to highlight the positive aspects of his ideology. He believed that the mestizo identity had value during a time in which purity of lineage and segregation was championed in the U.S. This is something that we cannot lose sight of. I admit that our contemporary racial challenges and ideologies differ from those of the Greco-Roman world. There is never a one-to-one correspondence between the life experiences of people today and those in the past. We can assume, though, that similar experiences existed, especially hostilities or notions of racial superiority.24 The gospel’s context had literature that included many stereotypes, racial slurs, threats of deportation, caricatures of the “other,” and racist rhetoric that cannot be dismissed.25 Continuing a non-racial reading of the Bible is not warranted, as if all portrayals were innocent and devoid of contested realities, violent histories, and ideologies that perpetuate racial inferiority. Even more, we cannot assume that our understandings and experiences (or non-experiences) with race have no impact on our reading of the Bible. This also means that I challenge here the readers of the Bible, especially those of the gospel of John, to avoid the immediate inclination to sanitize or spiritualize the gospel’s racial rhetoric. I cannot do this. In my reading the gospel, I feel the struggles and racial challenges of these texts. My experience in being “othered” or racialized leads me to have a sensitivity to how the Johannine prologue gives the readers a framework to re-interpret and re-represent all racial groups that emerge within the narrative. I have a keen sensitivity to the prologue’s racial rhetoric because I too have been the subject of racial rhetoric. The prologue tells a story of the Logos who has come into the world— a world filled with people who either know or do not know the Logos. This entrance into the world is announced by John the Baptist, whose testimony aims to reach all people of every racial group (1:6–8). Although the Logos is the life and light of all people (v. 4), not all people receive him (vv. 9–11). Racial rejection is part of this story (v. 11). Who are these resisters? This includes the Logos’s family and his own racial community— the people he was promised to deliver. This leads the reader to anticipate a hostile encounter with the Jewish people—but does it emerge this way? Which racial groups do appear in the narrative and become counted as those who “know” the Logos (v. 10) and “beheld” the glory of the Logos? This next section examines the various racial groups in the narrative— Jews, Samaritans, and Greeks—and explores the implications of the prologue’s racial hermeneutic.

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The Jews in John Any discussion about race in the gospel of John must deal with the question of its portrayal of the Jews (οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι). Scholars, in general, believe that the gospel either is anti-Jewish or reflects an intra-Jewish debate.26 This section will not seek to resolve this debate. I, however, sustain that “the Jews” within the gospel is primarily racial language that describes a people group. This may be an uncomfortable fact, given that it forces the interpreter to contend with the gospel’s anti-Jewish statements in a post-­ Holocaust context. I will not, as some do, try to explain the negative racial rhetoric in generalized language that is devoid of its racial or ethnic claims.27 Nor do I assume that vilification rhetoric excuses the gospel’s anti-Jewish statements.28 The gospel’s racial rhetoric includes both anti-­ Jewish and pro-Jewish perspectives. Remember, Vasconcelos’s La Raza Cósmica aimed to bring dignity to Mexicans while at the same time being racist toward non-mixed Mexicans—within the same text. We can hold both realities in our reading of the gospel of John. Common of any racial language, the phrase οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι (the Jews) also refers to the religious festivals, customs, and land of the associated people.29 This cautions us from assuming a negative portrayal of the Jews whenever οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι appears. Although there is no consistent portrayal of “the Jews” within the gospel, some of the strongest anti-Jewish dialogues provide insights on the gospel’s racial logic. By the end of the gospel, the Jews are not only Jesus’s own people who reject him, but they also have become associated with the religious authorities and become representatives of the “world.”30 My assessment resembles what Ramio Hakola suggests by an “outgroup homogeneity effect” where there exists a tendency to treat members of an outgroup as undifferentiated.31 In fact, the last time “the Jews” appears in the gospel, the disciples have gathered behind closed doors in “fear of the Jews” (20:19). These Jews have become “othered” as a group distinct from the disciples—all believing Jews—and from the “children of God” who believe in Jesus (11:52; 13:33; 21:5). “The Jews” gradually emerge as a monolithic group differing from other characters in the gospel to the point that it becomes difficult to distinguish between Jewish believers and Jewish unbelievers, or the world from fellow children of God.32 While space does not permit an investigation on every appearance of “the Jews,” I will focus closely here upon the portrayal of “the Jews” in John 8:21–59 and conclude this section by assessing how the prologue shapes the portrayal of the Jews.

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John 8:21–59: Children of the Devil and Patrilineal Descent John 8:21–59 includes similar racial rhetoric that continues to contrast and develop Jesus’s identity. Although the Jews who Jesus addresses within this dialogue are not described as religious leaders, I hold that they are for several reasons. First, as the narrative progresses, the threat to Jesus’s life is gradually attributed to the religious leaders. Jesus, while speaking to “those Jews who had believed him” (v. 31), is interrupted by other Jews who claim, “We are Abraham’s descendants” (v. 33) who challenge him. Jesus then accuses the latter group of Jews as “seeking to kill him” (v. 37), which is a similar charge spoken to “rulers” (Jewish leaders) in John 7:25–26 and “the chief priests and the Pharisees” in 11:47, 53. The Jews in 8:21–59 do not deny this accusation or claim to be unaware of such a plot. If the use of “Jews” was generic, the charge should have been dismissed as the previous Jewish crowds did so in 7:19–20 when Jesus made a similar accusation. Furthermore, prior to this incident Jesus teaches the people (λαὸς) in the temple, and the Pharisees and scribes bring a woman caught in adultery (8:3–11). They attempt to trap Jesus with a question about her legal outcome (v. 5). Although they do not execute the woman, this act of bringing judgment by stoning later emerges in 8:59. This time, it is Jesus they want to execute. Although early manuscripts do not include this story,33 its placement within later manuscripts matches both the hostile tone and presence of the Pharisees (7:45–53; 8:3, 13), the quick desire to utilize the death penalty (vv. 5, 59), and the context of the temple (vv. 2, 20, 59). Reading these stories together in the gospel’s canonical placement clarifies that Jesus is having an extended dialogue with the Jewish religious leaders since 7:45. For these reasons, I believe that it is best to understand “the Jews” in this passage as Jesus’s dialogue with Jewish religious leaders—not all the Jews in a general sense. Racial Context: Patrilineal Descent Within Jesus’s conversation with the Jewish religious leaders, the main arguments include the following: who are the real fathers of Jesus and those of the Jewish leaders? Is it Abraham, God, or the devil? Second, how does one identify the true descendants of these fathers? These questions are about race. That is, the ability to identify the boundaries that demarcate the relationship between people and their ancestors. We must note that the Greco-Roman society, including the Jewish culture, was

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patrilineal. The linkage between various descendants was through the father, not the mother. This is noticeable in Jewish genealogical lineages where a male traces his ancestors through another male.34 According to ancient medical embryology, it was presumed that the father was the begetter of the child, and the mother had a minimal participatory role in the child’s development.35 This theory of male procreation helps explain the link between descendants with the focus on male fathers begetting male sons. Being a son or descendant was no small matter. Such sonship determined one’s place within the family network and included the honor and privileges that come from an apical ancestor. The memory of one’s ancestors and the honor they communicated to their descendants were important in antiquity. Homer recounts an episode when Glaucus and Diomedes encounter one another before battle. Diomedes, worried that he was going to fight a god, asks his opponent, “who are you among men? I have never seen you in battle until now.”36 Glaucus recognizes that this is a question about lineage. He explains that he is the son of Hippolokhos and descendant of Bellerophon who slayed monsters.37 Upon hearing about Glaucus’s lineage, Diomedes puts down his shield and offers his friendship.38 Diomedes recognizes that even though they were not related, their ancestors were friends and thus found it necessary to respect this relationship and no longer see Glaucus as an opponent. In this episode, tracing one’s lineage mitigated conflict and built alliances. Polybius also recognized that the legacy of one’s ancestors lived through heirs. In his discussion of Roman funerary rites, he remarks that the memory and fame of the ancients is continually remembered. Those who “have done good service to their country become a matter of common knowledge to the multitude, and part of the heritage of posterity.”39 One’s identity, status, and reputation hinge upon one’s ancestors. This racial idea appears beyond Greco-Roman literature. Tobit utilized racial questions to gauge the trustworthiness of a stranger he asked to accompany him on a journey (Tobit 5:9–14). When the stranger revealed that he was “Azariah, son of the great Hananiah” (v. 13), this response left Tobit without further doubts. He apologized for seeking to verify his identity and explains, “I wanted to be sure about your ancestry. It turns out that you are a kinsman, and of good and noble race” (αγαθῆς γενεᾶς) (v. 14). To know the identity of someone’s ancestors gave Tobit a better sense if he could trust the person. The racial logic assumes that people thought honor, reputation, and trustworthiness was passed down to descendants.

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Josephus also uses this racial logic in the presentation of his own identity. He introduces his Life by first pointing out his noble lineage and ancestors: My family (γένος) is no ignoble one, tracing its descent far back to priestly ancestors. Different races base their claim to nobility (εὐγενείας) on various grounds; with us a connection with the priesthood is the hallmark of an illustrious line (γένους). Not only, however, were my ancestors priests, but they belonged to the first of the twenty-four courses—a peculiar distinction—and to the most eminent of its constituent clans. Moreover, on my mother’s side I am of royal blood; for the posterity of Asamonaeus, from whom she sprang, for a very considerable period were kings, as well as high priests, of our nation. (Life, 1.1–2)

Notice that Josephus presumes that various “races” appeal to ancestors in order to define and claim a particular “nobility.” This demonstrates that one’s identity is never understood apart from some connection or dependence upon one’s ancestors. This lineage argument is a racial argument that helps bolster Josephus’s pedigree and defend his identity from detractors (Life, 1.6). This racial rhetoric also appears in the New Testament. An example is found with Zechariah and Elizabeth within the gospel of Luke. The text describes Zechariah as belonging to the priestly division of Abijah and describes Elizabeth as a descendant of Aaron (Luke 1:5). This presentation of their identities in relation to their ancestors not only gives them a sense of prestige and honor but also further supplements the claim that they were “righteous in the sight of God” (v. 6). Paul likewise uses this racial logic when he claims to be a “Pharisee descended from Pharisees” (Acts 23:6) and “of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews” (Phil 3:5). By reminding readers of this heritage, Paul in a sense uses his “race card” to assert the honor, prestige, and status he inherited from his ancestors. What about the role of fathers in antiquity? It was widely known that Roman fathers had much power over their families. They could expose unwanted children, force their sons to marry or divorce their wives, and held paternal power (patria postestas) over their sons till death.40 Dionysius of Halicarnassus attributes this longstanding practice to Romulus the founder of Rome. He describes the father’s power over the son in terms of having the ability to imprison, whip, put in chains, force into labor, kill, or

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sell into slavery.41 Gaius admits that “there are virtually no other peoples who have such power over their children as we have.”42 But fathers were not cruel and inhumane people. We must not assume that because they had patria postestas that they were always harsh. In fact, the Emperor Hadrian exiled a father who killed his son for committing adultery with his stepmother. In retelling this case, the Roman jurist Marcianus believed that “paternal authority should rather be influenced by affection than by cruelty.”43 Fathers were indeed loving and had much concern over their children. Horace describes his father as one who deserves all credit, gratitude, and praise for leading him to a virtuous life: “I could never be ashamed of such a father, nor do I feel any need, as many people do, to apologize for being a freedman’s son.”44 Cicero expresses much grief over the death of his daughter, Tulia. The memory of his daughter became “the thoughts which consume me constantly, day and night.”45 Fathers truly loved their children—both sons and daughters— and were concerned with their moral training and development.46 They, along with Jewish mothers, were believed to impress their own likeness in both “mind and form” upon their children (4 Macc 15:4). Similar to the racial rhetoric that explains the relation between ancestors and descendants, children also inherited the evil characteristics, qualities, and dishonorable status of their fathers. The writer of Sirach points to the disgrace that children suffer because of their ungodly father (Sir 41:7). Sirach and others also discuss how children of evil or sinful parents inherit their calamity, are cursed and without honor, and inherit the punishments of their parent’s sins.47 This racial rhetoric, common of this period, explains how both honor and dishonor impact all descendants. This also suggests that in our reading of John 8, we must recognize the role that racial ideologies permeate the questions involving around the true father of the Jewish leaders and Jesus. Asking questions about one’s father draws the reader to think about this broader racial rhetoric. Analysis of John 8 As we analyze John 8, we must notice that Jesus’s dialogue with the Jews about fathers and ancestors is about race. The Jews draw attention to the lack of knowledge or whereabouts of Jesus’s father (v. 19), but Jesus is not the only one challenged with this racial rhetoric. After Jesus’s teaching about being set free (vv. 31–32), the Jewish leaders respond by affirming, “We are descendants (σπέρμα) of Abraham and have never been slaves to

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anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free?’” (v. 33). They bring to the forefront their racial identity as Abraham’s descendants to rebut Jesus’s charge of slavery (v. 33). Why this appeal to Abraham especially since the Hebrew people were once slaves? It must be noted that Hebrew slaves were never permitted to be in perpetual slavery (Exod 21:2; Lev 25:39–43; Deut 15:12–15). Rejecting the “slave” identity is not about their history, but about any association with a foreign lineage. Recall that Abraham described Ishmael as a “slave born in my house” (Gen 15:3). Esau, the apical ancestor of the Edomites, is destined to be a slave to Jacob (Gen 25:23). Furthermore, the text describes foreigners as being servants to the descendants of Israel (Gen 27:29) who can anticipate serving Israel at the end of the age (Isa 60:2). To call someone a slave is to place them outside of the privileged lineage of Abraham that passes through Isaac and Jacob. This also suggests that “slaves,” within the context of this racial rhetoric, are not legitimate children who inherit the privileges that come from an apical ancestor. This is a similar argument Paul makes in Galatians 4:21–31. Taken together, this all helps explain Jesus’s assertion that a slave does not have a permanent place in the family household (John 8:35). Jesus does something else with this racial rhetoric. He considers that those who commit a sin to have forfeited, or at least dislodge one from one’s place within the lineage. Sin, in other words, can delegitimize one’s racial identity. Although Jesus does affirm them as Abraham’s descendants (σπέρμα), he still considers them slaves because they seek to kill him (vv. 37–38). The Jews understood the implications of Jesus’s statement and his rejection of their racial identity. In response, they adamantly affirm that Abraham (vv. 39, 53) and God are their fathers (v. 41). Jesus counters their claim by suggesting that if they were truly Abraham’s children (τέκνα), then they would “do the deeds of Abraham” and not the deeds of another father (vv. 39–40). Jesus distinguishes between the σπέρμα (descendants) of Abraham and the (τέκνον) children of Abraham. Why so? Is there such a properly understood distinction? Within biblical literature, σπέρμα (“seed”) emerges in relation to covenantal promises. God made a covenant with the σπέρμα of Noah (Gen 9:9), Abraham (Gen 12:7; 13:15, 16; Ps 104:6–8), Aaron (Num 18:19; Sir 45:15), Phineas (Num 25:12–13; Sir 45:24), and David (Ps 89:3–4, 29–30, 35–37; Sir 45:25). Even Nehemiah reminds God of the covenant made to the σπέρμα of the Israelites (Neh 9:8). In particular, Sirach

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44:11–13 suggests that the Jewish people were eternally inheritors of the covenant because of their genealogical relations to the patriarchs. Sirach states, With their seed (σπέρματος) shall continually remain a good inheritance, and their children (ἔκγονα) are within the covenant. Their seed (σπέρμα) stand fast, and their children (τέκνα) for their sakes. Their seed (σπέρμα) shall remain forever, and their glory shall not be blotted out.

Sirach acknowledges that both the descendants (σπέρμα) and the children (ἔκγονα/τέκνα) inherit God’s promise. Isaiah likewise affirms that both the descendants (σπέρμα) and children (τέκνον) of Israel will receive God’s blessing and Spirit (Isa 44:3). This also includes the promise that the “children” will return to Jerusalem (Isa 60:4–9) and be instructed by the Lord (54:13). Zechariah, Jeremiah, and Baruch also claim that God would bring back the “children” (τέκνον) of Israel to Jerusalem (Jer 38:17; Zech 10:9; Bar 5:5–6). The Johannine Jesus, as it appears, makes a distinction by noting the difference between the children (τέκνον) and the descendants (σπέρμα) of Abraham. According to Jesus, the τέκνον who can claim Abraham as their ancestor are only those who imitate Abraham’s righteous life. Jesus’s racial rhetoric resonates with other Jewish writers who also distinguish between descendants. Sirach explains that only those σπέρμα worthy of honor are those who fear the Lord and keep the commandments (10:19). The writer of Maccabees exhorts the σπέρμα of Abraham to obey the law, exercise piety, and endure martyrdom (4 Macc 6:17–22; 17:6; 18:1, 23). Jesus’s racial argument resonates with these claims. He places those Jews who seek his death within a category of a slave who has no access, privilege, or rights as a descendant of Abraham—although they are genealogical descendants (σπέρμα). Making this distinction between the τέκνον and σπέρμα in John 8:33–44 is a racially destabilizing claim that continues the racial rhetoric of the prologue. No longer can one truly trust in one’s lineage alone. Having a particular ancestor does not guarantee that one has or will have the proper status and honor that rightfully belongs to descendants. Those who call themselves a “child” within the family of God and claim the privileges of Abraham are those who do his deeds—which include the joy of receiving Jesus (vv. 39–40, 56). Additionally, notice how Jesus appeals to the Father to anchor and establish a linkage between himself and God. The Father is the one who

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sent Jesus (8:16), testifies of Jesus (v. 18), instructs Jesus (v. 28), allows Jesus to be in his presence (v. 38), is honored by Jesus (v. 49), and glorifies Jesus (v. 54). On several occasions, Jesus calls into question the true father of the Jews. He portrays them as unaware of the God the Father (v. 19), ignorant of Jesus’s teachings on the Father (v. 27), and failing to do what they have heard from the Father (v. 38). In many ways, Jesus portrays the Jews as non-family members. In fact, he asserts that their father is the devil given that they do what he does (v. 41). The devil is a liar and murderer, which resembles the identity of those Jews who plot Jesus’s death (v. 40) and fail to believe in his truth (vv. 32, 40, 45–46). The perspective of the Johannine Jesus redraws racial boundaries between God the Father and his children—and makes an inseparable link between himself and God the Father. To love the Father is to love Jesus (8:42), to hear from the God is to hear him (v. 47), and to know the Father is to know him (v. 19). Those who plot Jesus’s death are racialized as “not of God” (v. 47), and thus not part of his family. The use of the genitive prepositional phrase in verse 47 (ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ) ought to draw the reader back to the prologue in 1:12–13 where this similar genitive construction appears. As mentioned in my discussion on the prologue, the phrases “born of God” (θεοῦ γενέσθαι) and “having been born out of God” (ἐκ θεοῦ ἐγεννήθησαν) is racialized rhetoric that describes the offspring and descendants of God. By utilizing a similar construction in John 8:47, the argument proposes that the Jewish religious leaders who do not accept Jesus’s identity not only have a different father, but they also belong to another family (vv. 19, 42). They are racialized as outsiders. While it may feel upsetting to find Jesus claiming that the father of the Jewish leaders is the devil, we cannot fail to observe the racial rhetoric going on here. This suspicion and denial of each other’s ancestry are racial claims. The prologue hinted that a new racial lineage was going to emerge—so why should the readers feel surprised when it does? Those who receive and believe in Jesus’s name become children of God who are born of God (1:12–13). And within John 8, the true descendants of Abraham are not just those connected to his lineage but those who imitate and do the deeds of Abraham—including the joyful response of seeing Jesus (8:52). The racial rhetoric presumes that real descendants imitate, do, and listen to their apical ancestor. The racial rhetoric of the Johannine Jesus meets its ultimate conclusion in portraying the Jewish religious leaders as children of the devil. By doing so, we are not only talking about two

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different families but two different lineages. Just as it portrays the Jewish religious leaders in a sinister manner, it also rebuts the charge that Jesus was a demon possessed foreigner who had no father and could not claim membership as a proper descendant of God and Abraham. A Latino Assessment of the Jews in John What do these portrayals of the Jewish religious leaders suggest? Although I believe that the mention of “the Jews” in these dialogues affirms that this is in reference to the religious leaders—not all Jewish people in general—I still take seriously the gospel’s anti-Jewish rhetoric, which resonates with the judeophobia of the Greco-Roman world.48 I also want to point out, though, that this racial language was motivated in part by representing the Jewish religious leaders in contrast to Jesus’s racial identity and relation to God. Clearly, the harshest racial vilification is reserved for the religious authorities. This is not a blanket statement for all the Jews in Judea or those Jews who believe in Jesus. This is not to suggest that this racial rhetoric does not contribute to the readers’ racial imagination of both the Jewish authorities and all non-believers as “Jews.” Ruth Sheridan rightfully observes how this broad use of “Jews” can be attributed to anyone associated with this identity.49 Certainly, the reader may confuse racial representations with reality and, as Sheridan suggests, “may have been encouraged to distance themselves from Jews and Judaism via the gospel.”50 Yet I caution one from fusing racial representations with reality— especially since the Jews never speak for themselves but are always represented through the gospel. The interpretive error emerges when this representation becomes plastered onto reality, thus becoming the defining portrayal of all Jews for all times and places. We must remember that this portrayal of the Jews also says much about the writer and the writer’s views—and not necessarily the Jews’ view of themselves. Furthermore, I feel weary of those able to identify the racist rhetoric of the past but cannot recognize White supremacy today. As in the case with Vasconcelos’s development of a mestizo identity, context matters in racial discourse. Vasconcelos never proposed to create a racist ideology.51 He sought to elevate a disparaged identity of the mixed Latin American people. Regrettably, his racial project was undermined by his own efforts. He failed to notice the implications of his proposal toward non-mixed Latin Americans. He could not see what we do 100 years later. Time, distance, and empathy have given us a clearer understanding of Vasconcelos’s racial

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rhetoric. In a similar manner, the context of the Johannine gospel was during a period when the Gentile and Jewish believers in Jesus were seeking to understand their identity, Jesus’s identity as a Jew, and their place within the wider Jewish community.52 The gospel may not have presumed that these harsh portrayals of the Jewish religious leaders would become the primary racial representation of the Jews for later generations, but that has unfortunately happened. Regrettably, the gospel’s portrayal of the Jews, which stems from an intra-Jewish debate, later served as the basis for an anti-Jewish polemic in Christian history. This has been the unintended consequences of the gospel’s racialized rhetoric. Only later, in a postHolocaust context, do we realize how these portrayals harm our racial imagination. We look back and discern the anti-Jewish and anti-­Semitic rhetoric in the gospel that the writer may not have noticed (or intended) when penning this portrayal. We must acknowledge this reality. But in as much as we want to criticize the gospel for its racial portrayals, I encourage the same enthusiasm in identifying the racist portrayals of minority groups today.

The Samaritans, the Prologue, and the Mestizo Jesus The portrayal of the Samaritans within the New Testament resonates with the Latinx identity and experience. Both the Latinx community and Samaritans are known for having a mixed (mestizo) racial identity. It is also striking that Jesus was also viewed as a Samaritan by his Jewish people (8:48), yet from the perspective of a Samaritan woman and Pontius Pilate, Jesus was viewed as a Jew (4:9; 18:35). Jesus was racialized by various racial peoples who viewed him from the prism of their own racial identities. Many Latinx people in the U.S. also face this dilemma. When we go to Latin America, we are viewed as gringos—despite our similar culture, language, or skin color. But in the U.S., we are all categorized and grouped as “Mexicans”—despite the fact that many are U.S. citizens and may not have ancestry in Mexico. I can sympathize with the Samaritans, their history, and racial experiences given that this also touches upon my own life experiences. I am neither Mexican enough because of my U.S. identity while also never being American enough because of my Mexican heritage. This makes for a dual identity that is always marginalized and defined in relation to the majority group. My identity is always pressed and shaped by how others perceive and believe about my mixed racial group. There have been several times within my employment experiences in higher education

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that I have been stereotypically presumed to be a patriarchal and “angry” Mexican (bad hombre, perhaps), simply because I ask questions, challenge authority, or hold people accountable. Further aspects emerge when we look more closely at the way the gospel of John portrays the Samaritans. The most obvious is that there is no anti-Samaritan rhetoric on the lips of Jesus. Matthew writes Jesus saying that the disciples were to preach the gospel solely to the “lost sheep of Israel” and not the Gentiles or Samaritans (Matt 10:5–6). The Matthean Jesus does not presume that the Samaritans share a similar racial identity with the Jews; rather, they are distinct from the “sheep of Israel.” Luke, who frequently mentions the Samaritans, also echoes this similar perspective. They are “foreigners” (Luke 17:18), using a rare word ἀλλογενής that also appears in 1 Maccabees 3:36 to describe Gentiles who were resettled in Judea during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes. Furthermore, Luke records that James and John request fire from heaven to consume the Samaritans when they did not welcome them (Luke 9:52–54). Jesus, however, does not concede. In fact, he portrays them in a positive light within a parable (10:25–37). When Jesus heals ten lepers at a distance, the only person who returns to give thanks is a Samaritan (17:11–19). Although the Samaritans frequently appear in the gospel of Luke, their portrayal is mixed. In Jesus’s teaching they are exemplary people. But the Samaritan people as a whole are not hospitable to Jesus and the disciples, and emerge as a racially distinct group. John has a different portrayal. The gospel seems to change the relationship between Jews and Samaritans. Although the writer recognizes that “Jews have no dealings (συγχράομαι) with Samaritans” (John 4:9), Jesus never prohibits his disciples from venturing into Samaria. Instead, they all travel through the region, converse with the people (4:7–30), buy food in the city’s marketplace (v. 8), and reside there for two days (v. 40). Although Jesus’s personal encounter with a Samaritan woman reflects a betrothal narrative,53 it ventures into a robust theological conversation between two people who are different in terms of race, gender, and worship. They are not called foreigners, something that Luke does, or described as not belonging to the “lost sheep of Israel” as we find in Matthew. In fact, Jesus is accused of being a Samaritan (John 8:48). Jesus is portrayed as one of them. How then should we understand the portrayal of the Samaritans in John’s gospel? Even more, in what ways has the prologue already set up our expectations for this encounter between Jesus and the Samaritans?

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Samaritans in John’s Gospel The story of the Samaritans begins when Jesus and his disciples travel to the town of Sychar and arrive at a well for rest (4:4–6). The disciples leave to buy food within the town (v. 8). While alone, Jesus meets a woman and asks her for some water from the well. She naturally understands this request as an interruption of racial norms. The Samaritan woman brings to the forefront Jesus’s Jewish racial identity and later mentions the history of segregation between their communities (vv. 9, 20). Although the writer notes that “the Jews have no ‘association’ (συγχρῶνται) with Samaritans” (v. 9), this reason is not fully explained. The reader is supposed to assume a hostile relationship or unfriendly terms between these two distinct groups. Jewish readers would already fill in this gap with the historical experiences and hostility between them. But the dialogue continues, and Jesus reveals his ability to give living water (vv. 10–15). After the discussion on living water, the conversation turns to the woman’s marital history (vv. 16–18). We should, however, not presume that this woman was immoral. Although Jesus mentions that the woman had five husbands, there is nothing in the text that points to condemnation. She may have come to the well at noon because she simply ran out of water, not because of some shameful sexual reputation as some scholars propose.54 Furthermore, her many husbands may have been the result of dealing with infertility, abuse, or as Gail O’Day observes, being “trapped in the custom of levirate marriage and the last male in the family line has refused to marry her.”55 The only result of this revelation is that it convinces the woman to acknowledge Jesus’s identity as a prophet—not that she was in sin (v. 19). As a result of knowing Jesus’s prophetic identity, the Samaritan woman brings to Jesus’s attention the Jewish temple claim that has served as a point of contention between their racial communities (v. 20). Jesus responds by emphasizing, “we worship what we know” (v. 22), whereas the Samaritans do not. This statement upholds the superiority of Jewish worship, while also undercutting the emphasis of worshipping in temples altogether. Jesus points to the eventual uselessness of temple worship in mountains (v. 21) and a time when people would worship in the Spirit and in truth (vv. 23–24). Worship in the Spirit is primarily characterized by the rejection of violence and antisocial behavior that Jewish and Samaritan mountains have come to symbolize. This also includes a rejection of the

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racial segregation that their communities foster against each other.56 The dialogue compels the Samaritan woman to hope for the future messiah who would clear up these questions. It is at this moment that Jesus reveals his identity as that person (vv. 25–26). When the disciples return from the city, they are amazed to see Jesus speaking to a woman (v. 27). Yet it must be emphasized that the woman emerges as a theological sparring partner. She does not relent or leave Jesus’s claims unquestioned. She acknowledges his multifaceted identity as a Jew, a prophet, and the Messiah. Furthermore, she does not keep this knowledge to herself. She leaves the well and tells all the people in Samaria about Jesus (vv. 28–29). This announcement captures Samaritan attention and leads them to find Jesus (v. 30). While the Samaritans are coming to Jesus, the disciples want Jesus to eat some of the food they brought (vv. 31–34), but Jesus takes that opportunity to teach them about another type of food—to do the work of the Father (vv. 31–38). Meanwhile, some Samaritans believe in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony (v. 39). Others ask Jesus and the disciples to remain with them, which they do for two days (v. 40). Eventually, more Samaritans come to faith in Jesus (v. 41). Indeed, they eventually confess that Jesus is the “savior of the world” (v. 42). This encounter with the Samaritan woman becomes an opportunity for Jesus’s identity to emerge. He is not only a Jewish prophet or messiah, but a savior of all races. A simple stop for rest and nourishment in Samaria turned into a lengthy stay. Or as the prologue anticipates, Jesus dwells among the people and reveals his glory (1:14). This episode in John 4 is not the only time John mentions the Samaritans in his gospel. Later, “the Jews” accuse Jesus of being a Samaritan and demon possessed (8:48). He does not deny this racial identity. He only denies demon possession (v. 49). It is uncertain why these religious leaders would have accused Jesus of being a Samaritan. Was it something Jesus said that gave them clues to a Samaritan theology? Or perhaps it was because they had questions about his lineage and kinship origins? Andrew Benko offers some possibilities that would have led them to charge Jesus with this Samaritan identity.57 Regardless, from their perspective, Jesus had become a Samaritan. He was racially different and distinct from the Jewish people. For the readers, this racial accusation would have reminded them about Jesus speaking to the Samaritan woman and dwelling in Samaria for two days.

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Racial Ideologies and the Samaritan Discourse What is the significance of Jesus’s dialogue with this racially distinct woman, his presence in Samaria, and his opponents’ accusation that he was a Samaritan? This section provides a brief sketch of two racial ideologies that can illuminate our reading of the narratives in John 4:4–42 and 8:48—first, the racial ideology of genealogies and its related discussions to lineage purity and suspicion of foreigners and, second, the malleability of racial identity and how residing in a foreign land was presumed to change one’s racial identity.  enealogies and Racial Mixture G According to Josephus, the Samaritans were a distinct racial group who had an ambivalent relationship with the Jews.58 He suggests that when the Jews were prospering, the Samaritans pretended to be allies and kinsmen.59 But when the Jews underwent difficult situations, the Samaritans claimed to be unrelated and thus should not expect “any kindness or marks of kindred,” given that they are from other countries.60 Josephus also portrays the Samaritans as people who obstructed the Jewish Babylonian exiles from rebuilding the temple, which stems from a particular rereading of the “enemies of Judah” in Ezra 4:1–5.61 Although Josephus includes the Samaritan claim to be descendants of Joseph, he dismisses this assertion. Instead, he tells the readers that they are Cutheans from Media and Persia.62 This portrayal of the Samaritans as people imported from Cuthah originates in 2 Kings 17:24–28 when the Assyrians resettled the region. According to 2 Kings 17, the Cutheans learned about the Hebrew tradition, and how to worship God, and were instructed by visiting Hebrew priests in order to ward off a vicious attack from lions. Jewish tensions with the Samaritans were not just theological or political but also racial. Suspicion stemmed from questions about their racially mixed status. Although the Samaritan people would deny the charge of being foreigners or having a mixed racial identity, by the first century, enough suspicion already existed for racial hostility to develop.63 Early in Ezra 9:2 and Nehemiah 13:23–27, the returning Jewish exiles were forbidden from intermarrying with foreigners, which included the Samaritans in the region. The writer of Sirach, a Jewish scribe, mentions the following: “two nations my soul detests, and the third is not even a people. Those who live on the mountain of Samaria, the Philistines, and the foolish people who live in Shechem”64 (the city cultic center of the Samaritans). Later

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rabbinic tradition continues a prohibition against intermarriage with the Samaritans.65 By the second century of the common era, Samaritans were still perceived as having a questionable lineage. This continual critique of the Samaritan people from 2 Kings 17 to rabbinic literature undergirds a consistent Jewish portrayal of the Samaritans. The Samaritans were racially mixed and differed from the Jews, who had preserved their lineage. This concern for lineage purity led to the justification of hostile racial relations in the ancient world. This included a suspicion toward migrants, a lack of citizen rights for foreigners, intermarriage bans, and exile of people groups deemed a threat. In early Greek thought, the Athenians explain their hatred of foreigners on the grounds of defending their racial purity. Isocrates argues that the Athenians did not reside in their land as a result of expelling its original inhabitants, conquering, or migrating to the region; instead, they were of a lineage so noble and so pure that throughout our history we have continued in possession of the very land which gave us birth, since we are sprung from its very soil and are able to address our city by the very names which we apply to our nearest kin.66

As noticeable in the aforementioned quote, Athenian autochthony was not solely an argument explaining lineage purity and association with land; it was anti-immigrant rhetoric. That is, the Athenians were indigenous Greeks, not a racial group that wandered and mixed with other races. They were “born from the soil” and thus superior to others—including other Greeks who had questionable identities. Likewise, Plato appealed to a myth of pure lineage and national identity to justify a love of freedom and hatred toward foreigners, stating, “we are pure-blooded Greeks unadulterated by barbarian stock … our people are pure Greeks and not a barbarian blend; whence it comes that our city is imbued with a whole-­ hearted hatred of alien races.”67 Plato’s concern for a pure Athenian racial lineage led to a theoretical eugenics program that would keep the Athenians racially pure—even from inferior Greeks.68 He assumed that allowing foreigners to reside would bring immense deterioration to the native residents, commenting: The intermixture of states with states naturally results in a blending of characters of every kind, as strangers import among strangers novel customs and this result would cause immense damage to peoples who enjoy a good polity under right laws.69

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Aristotle also continued this racial rhetoric when he proposed that a racially mixed population would lead to division and factions.70 And we find in Euripides’s Ion how a person of questionable ancestry would have a perpetual inferior status in Athens.71 It must be noted, however, that a concern for racial purity was not just an Athenian view. The Spartans also forbade foreigners from residing in their city.72 They did not view them kindly, were accused of being very inhospitable, and justified infant exposure for the sake of keeping the race pure.73 Although the Jewish people were also criticized for their hostility toward foreigners, Josephus appeals to Plato and Spartan practice to explain that the Jewish custom was not unique. In fact, Josephus notes that Plato also agreed that the Greeks should not allow “foreigners intermixing with their own people at random” and that the “commonwealth should keep itself pure.”74 Josephus also remarks that the Spartans even did not allow their own citizens to travel due to the fear of bringing foreign customs back to the land.75 This should disabuse us from assuming that ancient Greek views of racial purity were long forgotten by the time of the first century, especially with the advent of the Romans who were known to come from a mixed race. Furthermore, the portrayal of the Romans as a racially mixed race was not always upheld. Dionysius of Halicarnassus argued that Romans were descendants of the Trojans, and when they arrived in Italy, the region was already founded by Greek inhabitants.76 He attempts to debunk the Roman stigma of a racially mixed status by proposing this alternative explanation. This does not suggest that racial mixture did not occur among the Romans. He agrees that the “admixtures of the barbarians with the Romans … happened at a later time.”77 This portrayal of the Romans certainly runs counter to the Aeneid’s claims of Roman origin. Indeed, Jupiter asserts that Aeneas and his Trojan descendants will be made “Latins of one tongue” and “from them shall arise a race, blended with Ausonian blood.”78 What do the aforementioned views reveal about racial ideologies in the ancient world? Primarily, it shows that a racially mixed identity was of inferior quality. This was, as Benjamin Isaac remarks, a common conviction in antiquity.79 We can observe this belief in Tacitus’s portrayal of the Germans, where he observes the impact of racial mixture upon the Germans and their various tribes. Tacitus affirms that some Germans were an autochthonous racial group, but others, whom he doubts could be associated with the Germans, had intermixed with one another and “live in filth and

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sloth.”80 This negative connotation of a mixed racial identity also emerges in Livy’s portrayal of various racial groups who have become inferior as they intermixed with others. He writes that Gauls are “degenerates of a mixed race” and that Macedonians have “degenerated into Syrians, Parthians, Egyptians.”81 And in the first century of the common era, Dio Chrysostom describes people of a mixed race as “groups of sorry specimens who came together from this place and from that.” This description contrasts the people of Nicaea. He describes Niceans as people belonging to a noble lineage of Greeks and Macedonians who were “heroes and gods.”82 The implications ring clear: racial mixture leads to an inevitable racial decline. As a result, any person with a questionable “mixed” ancestry must be rejected and could be held in a perpetual inferior status. As we can observe, this racial ideology not only put forth a sense of racial superiority but also became the motivating force that justified the mistreatment and suspicion of those deemed to have a racially mixed status. We can also observe that racial mixture was perceived as the product of migration and sustained interaction or presence in a foreign land—not just intermarriage between neighboring racial groups. This clarifies why the Athenians and Spartans tended to view foreign migrants with suspicion and hold them at bay. They did not want them to stay long enough in their land to import their customs or intermarry with the natives. Tacitus also explains that racial mixture among the German tribes occurred because of two aspects: “immigration or intercourse.”83 Thus, the Jewish assumption that the Samaritans were of a mixed lineage was not a minor point. They, as a people group, could not racially improve their lineage given that their racially mixed status had already set them on a trajectory of racial decline. There was no way to, as they say in Spanish, mejorar la raza (improve the race). The best thing to do, if one was concerned about racial purity, would be to avoid them, their land, and not reside too long in their region given that it would put one’s lineage at risk. Even more, those who travel to foreign lands or interact and mix with other racial groups place themselves at risk of intermarriage, thus polluting one’s racial lineage. The fact that Jesus speaks to a Samaritan woman and spends two days in the Samaritan region suggests that as a Jewish man, he cares little about upholding racial ideologies that kept an entire people group in a perpetual inferior status. Nowhere in John does Jesus uphold the Jewish prohibition or suspicion toward racially mixed people. Yes, he was a Jew. But he did not allow this privilege or “Jewish” views to keep him from associating with Samaritans.

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Racial Becoming Something else significantly emerges when Jesus staying in Samaria for several days. John is the only gospel that records Jesus dwelling in the Samaritan region (4:39–42). Additionally, only John gives Jesus a non-­ Jewish racial identity. Jesus is called a Samaritan by his Jewish opponents (8:48). As previously mentioned, it emerges during a tense dialogue about racial identity, ancestry, Abraham, and being a child of the “devil.” Stewart Penwell suggests that this ethnic labeling “not only distances [Jesus] from the boundaries of themselves but, for the broader scope and purposes of the gospel of John, it also further demonstrates that ‘the Jews’ are still thinking only in terms of ethnic identities and categories.”84 There is another way of thinking about the text’s racial rhetoric. We must notice that Jesus’s Jewish opponents viewed him as a Samaritan. He was a foreigner in their eyes. How is it possible to confuse a Jewish racial identity with a Samaritan one? This statement is more than just a label or racial slur—it presumes that Jesus’s opponents projected upon him a transformed racial identity. They did not racially view him as one of their own. They viewed him as the “other.” Jesus had lost his racial identity and become a foreigner. Contrary to popular views of race today, racial identity in the Greco-­ Roman world was not fixed but malleable. In fact, one could take on the racial identity of a foreigner simply by residing in a foreign land. This, as I argue, would have been part of the racial rhetoric that the readers of John’s gospel would have noticed, especially since Jesus spent several days in Samaria. When the Roman historian Gaius Sallustius Crispus (Sallust) recalls the decline of the Roman republic, he makes mention of its prevalent corruption and vices. In one aspect, he blames the region of Asia and its wealth for corrupting Lucius Sulla and the Roman Army. Asia, in his eyes, was guilty of leading the Romans to practices “contrary to [Roman] ancestral customs.”85 Livy also provides another way of thinking about the impact a region has upon one’s racial identity. He states, “whatever grows in its own soil, has greater excellence; transplanted to a soil alien to it, its nature changes and it degenerates towards that in which it is nurtured.”86 Livy uses this analogy of soil and seed to explain human difference, the impact of an environment on one’s identity, and how one’s very being can deteriorate if placed in a different environment. This perspective is critical of migration and residing in a foreign land. Nothing beneficial is presumed to result when one spends too much time in foreign regions.

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This explanation of racial malleability is a part of a broader view of ancient environmental determinism that originated with the early Greeks.87 It was believed that the land in which one lived had an impact upon physiological differences, moral formation, and intellectual aptitude. We thus find statements that make this correlation throughout Greek literature. Herodotus quotes Cyrus, who affirms that “soft land breeds soft men.”88 Hippocrates also made racial judgments of inferiority and superiority based upon the climate of the environment, stating that one “will find that Asiatics also differ from one another, some being superior, others inferior. The reason for this, as I have said above, is the changes of the seasons.”89 Plato also explains that some regions are naturally superior to others for the formation of people, their bodies, and souls.90 The Spartan general Pausanius becomes accused of losing his Spartan identity, that is, becoming a Median and thus turning into a ruthless dictator. This accusation brought political problems to the Spartans and for this reason, they no longer sent generals overseas.91 Polybius, centuries later, echoes a similar sentiment: we mortals have an irresistible tendency to yield to climatic influences and to this cause, and no other, may be traced the great distinctions which prevail amongst us in character, physical formation, and complexion, as well as in most of our habits varying with nationality or wide local separation.92

This view later influenced Vegetius’s advice in finding Roman military recruits: “climate exerts an enormous influence on the strength of minds and bodies.”93 The ancient Greeks understood racial differences, culture, and characters of people groups in terms of the environment, and this view had a lasting impact upon Roman thought. If one resides in a foreign land too long, one becomes like the foreigners of the land, as with Livy’s metaphor of the seeds and soil. This is most noticeable in Ovid’s Triste, a collection of letters that describe his voyage, experiences as an exile, and the dread that comes with leaving one’s ancestral land, family, and friends. Throughout the Triste, Ovid expresses his gradual loss of Roman identity, one that moves from a Roman poet to a barbarian. His letters include many descriptions about the harsh climate and soil of his new home, the “barbarian world” as he describes it.94 He even personifies the letters as a “stranger” from a foreign land95 and warns the reader that if any linguistic expressions in his letters do not seem Latin, this is due to the barbarian

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land that has influenced Ovid’s speech.96 Ovid exclaims, “I have unlearned my power of speech. … O believe me, I fear that Sintic and Pontic language may be mingled with the Latin in my writings.”97 He further remarks that his tongue has “unlearned ere now its utterance of propitious words.”98 He continues to worry that his writings now contain a “few barbarians,” which stem from the place where he resides as an exile.99 Then, at the end of his letter, he confesses that “here it is I that am a barbarian.”100 He has lost his Latin tongue and no longer dresses in his Roman clothing. He now speaks the Getic and Sarmatian language.101 He has become a foreigner, and the barbarian land has completely transformed his racial identity. Ovid’s writings reflect the racial transformation that occurs to an exile who lived in a foreign land. Although this experience was forced upon Ovid, we do have another occasion when racial transformation occurred gradually. We may often think that throughout Alexander the Great’s conquests he always remained as a Macedonian who brought foreigners under Greek rule, but Plutarch notices a remarkable change in Alexander’s racial identity. He describes Alexander as putting on “barbarian” clothing when he ventures to the region of Parthia. Plutarch does not know how to interpret this action and proposes two possible motivations: (1) as either due to a desire to connect with the local customs, thinking that this sharing of customs and culture would lead to the “humanizing of men” or (2) Alexander wants to observe whether this would lead the people to bow before him.102 Yet the wearing of foreign clothes did not always occur in every situation and from every region. Plutarch states that Alexander did not put on Median clothes. It was too “bizarre,” given that they wore pants, cloaks, and tiaras. Instead, Alexander utilized a blend of Persian and Median clothes, which communicated a style “less ornate” and “more impressive.”103 Plutarch admits that Alexander became too comfortable with this clothing, and it eventually offended his Macedonian companions. As Alexander traveled the various regions and conquered foreigners, he too became a foreigner and lost his Macedonian identity. This racial transformation was also noticed by his military leaders. They reacted to Alexander’s adoption of foreign culture, language, worship practices, and identity. By becoming a “barbarian,” Alexander lost the respect of his companions. Quintus Rufus remarks that Alexander forced Persian clothing upon his troops and friends, which they found distasteful, but they did not dare refuse to wear it.104 He further notices that “they had lost more by victory than they had gained by war” and felt ashamed of themselves

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given that Alexander resembled “one of the conquered rather than a conqueror.”105 Greek historian Arrian of Nicomedia also states that many Macedonians observed Alexander as “developing a completely barbarian mentality and placing Macedonian culture and the Macedonians themselves at a low level of esteem.”106 It cannot be missed that Alexander himself went through a racial transformation. His way of life and clothing changed because of residing on foreign lands. Plutarch remarks that Alexander “changed his way of life to be even more like the natives, and he brought their ways closer to the customs of the Macedonians.”107 In other words, not only Alexander brought Greek culture to foreigners, but the foreigners also influenced Alexander’s way of living. These two examples, Ovid and Alexander, demonstrate the malleability of racial identity. Residing in a foreign land would put one at risk of becoming like a foreigner—open to their cultural influence and eventually losing one’s racial identity. The fact that Jesus is accused of being a Samaritan demonstrates that he truly resided in Samaria, had fellowship with Samaritans, and through the process of being with them had become a Samaritan. Although Jesus’s stay was only for two days, it would have been enough for the readers of the gospel to make the narrative connection between the charge of being a “Samaritan” in 8:48 and his residency in Samaria in 4:39–42. This is perhaps why Jesus does not deny the charge of being a Samaritan. To do so would imply that he was truly not there and “dwelt among us” as the prologue anticipated (1:14). Mestizo Samaritans and Jesus The Fourth Gospel, more than any other gospel, includes the story of Jesus having concrete interactions, residence, and success in Samaria. Jesus ventures and resides in a region inhabited by racially “inferior” people. Yet it is striking that the Samaritans who have the most questionable ancestry are those who are receptive, hospitable, and able to recognize Jesus’s identity. This portrayal of the Samaritans has led to scholars such as Raymond Brown concluding that the Johannine community was composed of Samaritan converts.108 The exhortation to be hospitable toward all races is also embedded within Vasconcelos’s racial project for the mestizo people—Latin Americans who, like the Samaritans, have a mixed racial identity. The gospel portrays the Samaritans as people who welcome and experience the dwelling presence of the Logos. They know that the Jewish people are a community

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who “have no dealings” (4:9) with Samaritans, but they welcome Jesus anyways. Jesus may have belonged to an exclusionist community, but this did not matter. These mestizo Samaritans were open to hearing the gospel. Indeed, they are the one racial group in the gospel who also fulfill what the prologue anticipates when it claimed that the “Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us” (1:14). Who is the “us” the prologue assumes? According to the gospel’s literary world, it would have also included the Samaritan people. Yet none of this would have happened if this mixed racial group, starting with a Samaritan woman, would have resisted a Jewish man and his disciples. And as Jesus dwelt with those who were viewed racially inferior, we must not fail to observe that from the perspective of Jesus’s opponents in 8:48, Jesus became a Samaritan, a charge he does not deny. His presence among this Samaritan community was long enough for him to become associated and take upon himself their racial identity. Jesus spoke to a mestizo Samaritan woman, dwelt with the mestizo Samaritan people, and became a mestizo Samaritan.

Jesus and the Greek Mission The Greeks are certainly on the writer’s mind in John’s gospel. No other gospel includes Greeks having interest in Jesus or raises the possibility that Jesus wanted to visit the Greeks. What purpose does their portrayal in the gospel story serve? Does this suppose, as I believe, that the gospel was written with them in mind and thus includes them as characters in the gospel story? Barnabas Lindars certainly agrees that the gospel was probably written for Greeks given that the writer takes their way of thinking into account and uses expressions that appeal to Hellenistic seekers.109 Troels Engberg-Pedersen demonstrates how much of the gospel can be read and understood from a monistic Stoicism perspective.110 And Sjef Van Tilborg explains how the gospel would have resonated with readers who resided in Ephesus, a thoroughly Hellenized city.111 Further, we know the Greeks certainly expressed interest in the Jewish religious tradition. A cursory review of Paul’s travel narratives in Acts shows that many Godfearers and Greeks were in the synagogues of Antioch-Pisidia, Iconium, Thessalonica, and Corinth.112 In Luke’s account, many Jews and Greeks throughout Asia heard the gospel Paul preached when in Ephesus (Acts 19:10–17). Even more, we cannot avoid mentioning that according to Josephus, Greeks had also visited Jesus. He writes:

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Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Greeks (Ἐλληνίκοῦ). (Ant. 18.63)

If Greeks were present in the synagogues of the Jewish diaspora, and Josephus remarks that Jesus had attracted some Greeks, why should we presume that they would have been absent from any interaction with Jesus? Perhaps this is why the gospel of John includes Greeks within the narrative, even if they were just a minority presence. Racial diversity and representation are important for the gospel of John, especially since it was likely written to believers residing in Ephesus. Yet, presuming that the gospel’s primary readers were either Jews or Greeks is a false choice, especially during a time when the Greek intellectual tradition had already colonized the Roman mind.113 Cross-cultural communication and Greek cultural colonization of the Mediterranean world demonstrate that people did not live in isolation. Cultural and racial contact between Greeks and non-Greeks was widespread since the archaic period and the influence moved in both directions. It was Martin Bernal who urges us to reject the racist scholarship that could not perceive Greece emerging from the colonization of Africans and Semites.114 In fact, Herodotus asserts that the Egyptians came to Greece and made themselves kings in that region.115 Kostas Vlassopoulos also adds that “various communities across the Mediterranean adopted and adapted goods, ideas, techniques and practices that originated from Greek, Phoenician, Egyptian, Aramaean, Assyrian, Persian, and other cultures.”116 It therefore should not be surprising that Greeks appear in the gospel, if at least in passing. This final section thus explores how the gospel portrays the Greeks. I draw from previous insights in the prologue and conclude with final observations in light of Vasconcelos. The Greeks, as I further demonstrate, are portrayed as migrants who seek Jesus. In fact, the Synoptic Gospels mention Jesus’s ventures to the Decapolis, Tyre, and Sidon. But the Fourth Gospel takes the opposite approach.117 In the Fourth Gospel, the Greeks come to him. Their appearance in the story reminds readers to have a broader racial awareness of those in the periphery, those migrants who travel great distances and want to see Jesus.

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Greeks as Immigrants The Greeks first make an appearance in the statements of the Jewish crowds, who ask themselves, “Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? He does not intend to go to the Diaspora among the Greeks, and teach the Greeks?” (7:35). They make this statement after Jesus appears during the week-long Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) in Jerusalem and mentions his departure (vv. 33–34). The Jews interpret this statement as Jesus’s desire to flee the city. But what could have prompted this assumption that a Jew would desire to travel to a Greek region? When they talk among one another about the possibility of Jesus going to the Greeks, this is not a casual comment. Racial hostility and kinship rejection permeates the episode. This was supposed to be a celebratory week, but for Jesus, being in Jerusalem brought his life in danger. Earlier, Jesus knew that the Jewish religious leaders were looking for an opportunity to kill him (vv. 1, 19). The crowds recognize this too (v. 25). Some, including the temple police, try to arrest him (vv. 30–32). Indeed, the temple police observe and listen to Jesus and his words, but the positive reaction of the Jewish crowds prevents an immediate arrest (v. 44). Within this context of potential violence, death, and arrest, Jesus makes these enigmatic statements—ones interpreted as his desire to flee to the Greeks and teach them (v. 35). In this sense, the Greeks are portrayed as future disciples who will learn and receive Jesus. Later, five days before Passover, the Greeks appear again in the narrative. During Jesus’s trip to Jerusalem many Jewish people exclaim, “Hosana, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the king of Israel” (12:12). Jesus rides a colt to Jerusalem in fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9. The disciples do not understand the significance of his journey to Jerusalem (v. 16). Still, news of Jesus’s presence spreads to many people (v. 17). As a response, they want to meet Jesus (v. 18). This leads the Pharisees to say to each other, “Look how the whole world has gone after him” (v. 19). Strikingly, after this statement, the Greeks appear in Jerusalem to “worship at the festival” (v. 20). Just like the Pharisees, they too may have noticed how Jesus attracts the attention of many people. They come to Philip and ask, “Sir, we would like to see Jesus” (v. 21). Philip does not respond to their request. Instead, he tells Andrew, who, in turn, tells Jesus that Greeks want to see him. At this point, Jesus pronounces the hour of his glorification, that is, his death (vv. 23–33). This pronouncement of his coming glorification comes in response to the Greek presence.

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How does the appearance of Greeks within the narrative contribute to the reader’s racial imagination? And how would it have been shaped by the prologue’s racial script? When we look at these two episodes, certain portrayals emerge. First, the Jewish crowds presume that Jesus, a Jewish teacher, would find refuge and disciples in the Greek diaspora. The Greeks, in this sense, are his presumed future students. They are not the communicators of knowledge, wisdom, or the true Logos; they are the recipients. Second, we must notice that Jesus never journeys to the Diaspora to teach the Greeks. Instead, the Greeks come to Jesus. The Greeks make their appearance as migrants in Jerusalem. For some reason, they come to celebrate a Jewish festival, not a Greek one. While there, they desire to see Jesus, but Jesus understands their request as a moment that initiates the hour of his death. The desire of these Greek migrants triggers the moment of Jesus’s glorification. That is, the gospel story progresses toward fulfillment when immigrants seek Jesus. Immigrants are those who move the story of Jesus’s life forward. Without immigrants, Jesus would not have known that it was time for him to die and thus fulfill the moment of his glorification. Greek Perceptions of Jews It was Arnaldo Momigliano who asserted that prior to the advent of Alexander the Great the “Greeks and the Jews do not seem to have spoken to each other.”118 The relationship, however, drastically changed after the death of Alexander and the emergence of the Ptolemaic and Seleucid kingdoms. Historical tensions between Jews and Greeks are well-­documented.119 Adrian Sherwin-White notes that in the late Republic period, the Greek cities of Asia showed their dislike of Jewish settlements by official persecution, which needed to be checked by Roman intervention.120 Likewise, Peter Schäfer notices anti-Jewish feelings abounding among the Greeks given the Jewish rejection and refusal to participate in Greek culture.121 Although Maccabees 1:1–64 and Diodorus’s Histories 34.1.1–5 offer different reasons why hostility existed between the Greeks and Jews, I want to move beyond racially antagonistic encounters and focus on the respect that the Greeks had toward the Jewish people as philosophers and worshipers. Although in this section I mainly draw from Josephus, Porphyry, and Diodorus who write about earlier testimonials, some key insights do reveal a borrowing and admiration of the Jewish people and intellectual tradition

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by the Greeks. One of the most notable is Josephus’s mention of an encounter between Aristotle and an unnamed Jewish man. According to Josephus, Aristotle met a Jewish man from Coele-Syria and believed he was a descendant of Indian philosophers. Aristotle makes some startling comments about the Jewish man’s character. He states that this Jewish man “spoke Greek and had the soul of a Greek.” Aristotle further adds that he visited the same places as I did and came to converse with me and some other scholars, to test our learning. But as one who had been intimate with many cultivated persons, it was rather he who imparted to us something of his own. (Ag. ap. 1.76–181)

This unnamed Jewish man deeply impressed Aristotle. It led Aristotle to view him, not only as a descendant of philosophers, but a fellow Greek philosopher. Josephus also provides another example from Pythagoras. He notes that Pythagoras was an admirer of Jewish institutions and “introduced many points of Jewish law into his philosophy.”122 This claim that Pythagoras encountered the Jewish people—and borrowed their tradition to inform his—also echoes a later claim by Porphyry. However, Porphyry adds that Pythagoras learned about the knowledge of dreams from the Hebrews among others.123 Porphyry admits that the Greeks viewed the Jews as philosophers. He quotes a disciple of Aristotle named Theophrastus who describes the Jews as “a race of philosophers [who] converse with each other about divinity, and during the night they view the stars, turning their eyes to them and invoking God with prayers.”124 Furthermore, Diodorus includes one account from Hecataeus of Abdera. Hecataeus praises Moses for his outstanding wisdom, courage, and founding the legendary city of Jerusalem.125 Hecataeus also adds that the Jewish people do not have a king but are led by a high priest who is superior to his colleagues in wisdom and virtue.126 Josephus also preserves another story from Hecataeus and his travel with Jewish mercenaries. Hecataeus describes a Jewish soldier named Mosollamus as being “intelligent, robust, and a good bowman.”127 During a march toward the Red Sea, Mosollamus cleverly outwits a seer who had confided in the augury of birds circling around them. When Mosollamus shoots the bird from the sky, it bothers the seer. Mosollamus responds, “how could any sound information about our march be given by this creature which could not

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provide for its own safety?”128 The implications are that the Jewish people have a different way of understanding the divinity, which impresses Hecataeus. From these Greek writers and traditions, the Jews had their own wisdom analogous to Greek philosophy. Josephus says it best: “not only did the Greeks know the Jews, but they admired any of their number whom they happened to meet.”129 He even later asserts that Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, Plato, Stoics, and nearly all the philosophers adopted their views of God from Moses.130 Unquestionably, it is difficult to know the reliability of these Greek and Jewish encounters. Even Momigliano asserts that despite the translation of the Old Testament into Greek, no Hellenistic poet or philosopher ever quoted it.131 Indeed, the Greeks had a reputation for their philosophical heritage, which led many Romans to believe that they were intellectually conceited.132 Some Romans, like Cato the Elder, loathed the Greeks. According to Plutarch, Cato was “averse to philosophy, and made mock of all Greek culture and training, out of patriotic zeal.”133 But according to the gospel of John, the Greeks do not come off as intellectually conceited or culturally superior to the Jews. They are in Jerusalem and desire to see Jesus. Their presence signals to the reader their interest in worshipping the God of the Jews and more specifically, their desire to learn from Jesus. The Greeks did have a fascination with other cultures. From Herodotus to Strabo, the Greeks are known to travel across various regions and explore the cultural practices of other racial groups. However, not all Greek accounts of Jewish worship practices are correct. Josephus tries to rebut several rumors. With regard to the views of Apollonius Molon and Posidonius, he remarks, “They tell lies and invent absurd calumnies about our temple, without showing any consciousness of impiety.”134 He further dismisses Apion’s charge that the Jews worship a golden head of a donkey in the temple.135 He mentions another similar rumor that had its origins with Mnaseas of Patara.136 Mnaseas believed that an Idumaean convinced the Jews that he was the god Apollo. This enabled him to secretly enter the Jewish temple and steal a golden head of a donkey.137 Another rumor had it that the Jews would annually kidnap a Greek man in order to sacrifice him in the temple. Josephus quotes the story of a Greek man who was passing through the region but was ambushed by Jews and imprisoned in the temple. While in the temple, he was “fattened” with food and eventually became aware of the real reason for the lavish meals. The Greek man overheard the Jews speaking about their laws and how they would

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annually kidnap a male Greek foreigner, fatten him up for a year, sacrifice him, and take an oath of hostility to the Greeks.138 This story was only made public because Antiochus was able to liberate the man. The Greek people could not have verified if these rumors were true, though, as they were prohibited from entering the inner courts of the Jerusalem temple.139 The Jewish people took this prohibition seriously. According to Luke, Paul was arrested on the charge that he brought Greeks into the Jewish temple (Acts 21:27–30). This charge was raised by the Jews from Asia who had seen Paul with Trophimus the Ephesian and assumed Paul brought him into the restricted temple complex (vv. 28–29). This accusation led some Jews to drag Paul out of the temple and beat him, intending perhaps even to kill him, if not for Roman intervention (vv. 30–36). The prohibition, however, did not stop Greek speculation and curiosity about the Jewish temple worship. Plutarch records a conversation of an Athenian named Moeragenes and others who discuss the similarities between Jewish temple activities and the Greek worship of Dionysus.140 Moeragenes interprets the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles and Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) as Bacchic rites.141 Although Moeragenes admits that he is unaware of what happens after the Jews enter the temple, he confidently assumes, “all this surely befits no divinity but Dionysus.”142 This conversation, as Plutarch records, further presumes that the Sabbath practice, clothing of the high priest, and Jewish celebrations that include trumpets, harps, and wine are activities akin to the Greek celebration of Dionysus. Although the conversation Plutarch records ends abruptly, it reveals a Greek curiosity and projection of their own understanding of the Jewish temple worship in light of Dionysian celebrations. They tried to understand the identity of the Jewish God and the temple rituals but were limited in their observations, given the inability to proceed into the temple complex. This curiosity about the Jewish people reflects the long practice of the Greek people’s search for, what Momigliano calls “alien wisdom.” Indeed, Herodotus claimed that all Greek religion came from Egypt.143 He even remarks that the Greeks learned about their own history when Solon, an Athenian, visited the Egyptians and brought back stories about Atlantis and the deluge.144 In Herodotus’s account, Solon is described by an Egyptian as someone known for his “wisdom,” “wanderings,” and “one who loves learning” enough to “[travel] much of the world for the sake of seeing it.”145 In Plato’s retelling of the story, the Egyptian priest

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tells Solon that the Greeks do not possess a single belief that is ancient and further informs him about Greek history.146 When we reflect upon these various accounts, the Greeks emerge as curious migrants looking for a teacher, unafraid of venturing into far regions where their presence would have been met with suspicion and possible harm. And together with John’s gospel, they emerge both as potential disciples and migrants. In a sense, the Greeks are neither hostile nor conceited, a portrayal contrary to popular opinion. They are students who seek to be taught. Jesus and the Welcoming of the Greeks This portrait of the Greeks provides a different understanding of the prologue’s racial rhetoric. In the prologue we receive a portrait of the Logos as a migrant from the realm of above who comes to enlighten the world with truth (1:1–5, 17). He comes into the world as human flesh (vv. 9–11, 14) and is rejected by his own people (v. 11). But those who did receive him saw his glory (v. 14). No one can see the face of God (v. 18), but they certainly can see the face of Jesus. The Greeks are part of the “world” the Logos comes to enlighten, and they emerge in the gospel as people who desire to see the Logos, who reveals truth (vv. 5, 17). This portrayal of their identity as students and not communicators of wisdom and knowledge runs counter to their reputation among the Romans. This inversely elevates Jesus’s status as a communicator of knowledge and wisdom. Jesus never goes to the Greeks in the Diaspora to learn about Greek intellectual tradition, though; the Greeks migrate to the Logos to see his face and learn from him. When we read this racial representation in light of Vasconcelos, further points emerge. According to Vasconcelos, the racially mixed identity of the Latin American people would naturally move them toward others. Hospitality would not be denied, not even to northern Americans. He says, “We want to offer them, as well as to all other peoples, a free country where they will find a home and a refuge, but not a continuation of their conquest.”147 He insisted that natural sympathy toward strangers was an advantage of the Latin American people.148 He believed that the Global South included people who were more sympathetic to strangers and thus capable of achieving a true “brotherhood” of humanity.149 Vasconcelos’s racial ideology, although limited, attempted to provide a new vision for humanity that would be beneficial for all people.150 He recognized that

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moving toward hospitality and acceptance of all people would be required for the future. The fact that the Greeks come to Jesus, and Jesus is accused of going to the Greeks in the Diaspora, presses the reader to think about the welcoming posture one must have toward those who are racially different. How would the Greeks respond to a Jewish rabbi in their midst? How will Jesus respond to the Greeks who came to see him? Although this story is often taken to explain the Johannine community’s evangelization among Greek sympathizers, we cannot forget to notice that the presence of the Greeks leads Jesus to recognize that the hour of his death had emerged. The prophetic hope that all people from different racial backgrounds would come to God had begun to see its fulfillment with these Greeks. When we explore the significance of this portrayal in light of the prologue, the reader is made aware that the wisdom and truth from the incarnate Logos is for all people—including the Greeks.

Conclusion The topic of race in the gospel of John is an important topic that cannot be overlooked. Unfortunately, few scholars have given this topic much thought. In fact, J. Daniel Hays devotes only two paragraphs to this gospel in his biblical theology of race.151 But in my exploration of this topic, I also draw into the conversation the work of Vasconcelos who has produced for the Latin American people an understanding of their own racial identity that still resonates today. I do so because in my reading of race in the prologue and gospel, I do not want to pretend, as many so-called objective interpreters do, that my own social location has no influence or impact on my reading of the gospel. I utilize Vasconcelos because I believe we can learn from his mistakes. He presumed that humanity was developing into a new “cosmic race” but failed to observe the implications that his rhetoric had toward non-mixed Latin Americans and how others would use his racial ideology. His racial language cloaked with universalizing goals included within its underbelly the very ideologies of inferiority and supremacy he sought to dismantle. I believe that colorblind ideologies and neutral interpretations of the “Jews” in the Fourth Gospel have the possibility of making a similar mistake. Andrew Benko points to this very issue in his own analysis. Although he does not draw from Vasconcelos, he notes that the gospel attacks the very idea of race even though it uses racial categories to construct a new higher lay of identity which bears all the hallmarks of race.152 This certainly brings challenges, as Benko remarks,

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for those who value their racial identity. We can further notice that for the gospel, what matters the most is not one’s racial identity, it is whether one has entered into a new racial relationship with God through Jesus. How then did the prologue impact the reader’s racial imagination? It began by deconstructing all racial privileges that emerge from a particular relation to an apical ancestor. But in doing so, it also constructed a new way of thinking about one’s racial relationship with Jesus and others. The various encounters with racial groups within the gospel point to a new way of thinking about racial identity that is both dependent upon the racial logic of the Greco-­Roman world and attempts to subvert its power over human relations.

Notes 1. José Vasconcelos, The Cosmic Race: A Bilingual Edition (MD: John Hopkins University, 1997), 17. 2. Vasconcelos, Cosmic, 18. 3. Vasconcelos, Cosmic, 20. 4. Vasconcelos, Cosmic, 34. 5. Vasconcelos, Cosmic, 25. 6. Laura Gómez, Inventing Latinos: A New Story of American Racism (New York: The New Press, 2020), 63–97. 7. Gómez, Inventing, 80. 8. Gómez, Inventing, 79–81; Vasconcelos, Cosmic, 32. 9. Rodolfo Galvan Estrada III, “Is a Contextualized Hermeneutic the Future of Pentecostal Readings? The Implications of a Pentecostal Hermeneutic for a Chicano/Latino Community,” Pneuma 37.3 (2015): 341–355. 10. Virgilio Elizondo, Galilean Journey: The Mexican American Promise (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1983), 23. 11. Elizondo, Galilean Journey, 51–52. 12. Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Mujerista Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1996), 66. 13. Justo Gonzalez, Santa Biblia: The Bible through Hispanic Eyes (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1996), 77–90; Gonzalez, The Mestizo Augustine: A Theologian between Two Cultures (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2016), 13–18. 14. Robert Chao Romero, Brown Church: Five Centuries of Latina/o Social Justice, Theology, and Identity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2020),14, 16, 36, 49, 81, 184. 15. Romero, Brown Church, 81.

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16. Rubén Rosario Rodríguez, Racism and God-Talk: A Latino/a Perspective (New York: New York University Press, 2008), 70. 17. Hanna Kang, “Mestizos/as with an Asian Face,” Perspectivas (2021): 43–60. 18. Daniel Orlando Álvarez, “El Mestizaje: Un Tema Teológico Que Une Y Provee Identidad A Las Comunidades Latinas,” Hechos 2.2 (2020): 3–20. 19. Edwin David Aponte and Miguel De La Torre, Introducing Latinx Theologies (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 2020), 65; Angel SantiagoVendrell, “Constructing Race in Puerto Rico: The Colonial Legacy of Christianity and Empires, 1510-1910,” in Can “White” People be Saved? Triangulating Race, Theology, and Mission, ed. Love Sechrest, Johnny Ramírez-Johnson, and Amos Yong (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2018), 150–173 [esp. 168–172]. 20. Néstor Medina, Mestizaje: (Re)mapping Race, Culture and Faith in Latina/o Catholicism (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 2009), xii, 1–22. 21. Medina, Mestizaje, 59, 81–104. 22. Jorge Aquino, “Mestizaje: The Latina/o Religious Imaginary in the North American Racial Crucible,” in The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Latino/a Theology, ed. Orlando Espín (Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons, 2015), 284. 23. Gómez, Inventing, 85–97, 123–129. 24. See for example Rodolfo Estrada, “White Evangelicals, White Supremacy, and the ‘Born Again’ Identity in a Post-Trump America: A Latino Rereading of John 3:1–8,” Horizon in Biblical Theology 44.1 (2022): 88–111. 25. Denise McCoskey, Race: Antiquity and Its Legacy (New York: Oxford, 2012), 143–144; Benjamin Isaac, The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton, 2004), 1–37. 26. Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John 1–12 (Garden City: Doubleday, 1966), lxxi–lxxii; Raymond Brown, Community of the Beloved Disciple: The Life, Loves, and Hates of an Individual Church in New Testament Times (New York: Paulist, 1979), 71–81; Ray Alan Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 126; Urban von Wahlde, “The Jews in the Gospel of John: Fifteen Years of Research 1983–1998,” Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 76.1 (2000): 30–55; Ray Alan Culpepper, “Anti-Judaism in the Fourth Gospel as a Theological Problem for Christian Interpreters,” in Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel, ed. Reimund Bieringer et  al.. (Louisville: John Knox, 2001), 68–69; James Dunn, “The Embarrassment of History: Reflections on the Problem of ‘Anti-Judaism’ in the Fourth Gospel,” in Ant-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel, ed. Reimund Bieringer et al. (Louisville: John Knox, 2001), 44–51; Paul Anderson, “Anti-Semitism and Religious Violence as

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Flawed Interpretations of the Gospel of John,” in John and Judaism: A Contested Relationship in Context, ed. Ray Alan Culpepper and Paul Anderson (Atlanta: SBL, 2017), 282–309; Janis Leibig, “John and The Jews: Theological Antisemitism in the Fourth Gospel,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 20.2 (1983): 209–234; Adele Reinhartz, “Judaism in the Gospel of John,” Interpretation 63.4 (2009): 382–393; Adele Reinhartz, Befriending the Beloved Disciple: A Jewish Reading of the Gospel of John (New York: Continuum International, 2001), 75–76; Ruth Sheridan, “Issues in Translating οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι in the Fourth Gospel,” JBL 132.3 (2013): 671–695; Tom Thatcher, “John and the Jews: Recent Research and Future Questions,” in John and Judaism: A Contested Relationship in Context, ed. Ray Alan Culpepper and Paul Anderson (Atlanta: SBL, 2017), 3–38. 27. Paul Rainbow, Johannine Theology: The Gospel, The Epistles and the Apocalypse (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2014), 133, 136. 28. Luke Timothy Johnson, “Anti-Judaism and the New Testament,” in Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, vol. 2, ed. Tom Holmén and Stanley Porter (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 1609–1638. 29. John 2:6, 13; 3:22; 5:1; 6:4; 7:2; 11:55; 19:40, 42. 30. John 1:19; 5:10; 9:18, 22; 18:12, 14, 31, 36, 38; 19:7, 38; 20:19. 31. Ramio Hakola, Reconsidering Johannine Christianity: A Social Identity Approach (New York: Routledge, 2015), 28. 32. Rodolfo Galvan Estrada III, A Pneumatology of Race in the Gospel of John: An Ethnocritical Approach (Eugene: Pickwick, 2019), 270–287. 33. Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (Germany: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994), 187–189. 34. Gen 5:1–32; 10:1–32; 11:10–27; 25:12–18; 35:23–26; Exod 6:14–25; 1 Chr 1:1–9:44; Ruth 4:16–22; Ezra 2:1–61; 8:1–14; 10:18–44; Matt 1:1–16; Luke 3:23–38. 35. Gianna Pomata, “Blood Ties and Semen Ties: Consanguinity and Agnation in Roman Law,” in Gender, Kinship, Power: A Comparative and Interdisciplinary History, ed. Mary Maynes, Ann Waltner et  al. (New York: Routledge, 1996), 43–64; Lev 12:2; 1 En 15:4; 4 Macc 13:19–20; Wis 7:1–6; Philo, Opif. 1:132–133; Philo, QG. 3:47; Diogenes Laterius, 8.28; Aeschylus, Eum. 657–661; Aristotle, Gen. an. 727b, 728a. 36. Homer, Il. 6.119. 37. Homer, Il. 6.210. 38. Homer, Il. 6.215. 39. Polybius, Hist. 6.54. 40. Julius Caesar, Bell. gall. 6.19; Ovid, Metam. 9.669–684, 704–706; Suetonius, Aug. 62–63, 69. 41. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. rom. 2.26–27.

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42. Gaius, Inst. 1.55. 43. Diogenes Laterius, 48.9.5. 44. Horace, Sat. 1.6.65–92. 45. Cicero, Att. 12.46. 46. Suzanne Dixon, The Roman Family (Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1992), 116. 47. Sir 23:24–25; 41:9; 47:20; Tob 3:3; Wis 3:13–18. 48. Estrada, Pneumatology of Race, 81–94. 49. Sheridan, “Issues,” 692. 50. Sheridan, “Issues,” 692. 51. Didier Jaén, Introduction to The Cosmic Race: A Bilingual Edition, by José Vasconcelos (Maryland: John Hopkins University, 1997), xi, xvi. 52. Reinhartz, “Judaism,” 391. 53. Betrothal scenes would include Gen 24:10–61; 29:1–20; Exod 2:15–21. 54. Contrary to Craig Blomberg, who believes she was avoiding others who would “remind her of her shameful sexual history,” in The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel: Issues & Commentary (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2001), 99. 55. Gail O’Day, “Gospel of John,” in Women’s Bible Commentary (Louisville: Westminster, 2012), 521; Jean Kim, “A Korean Feminist Reading of John 4:1–42,” Semeia 78 (1997), 109–119. 56. Estrada, Pneumatology of Race, 152–168. 57. Andrew Benko, Race in John’s Gospel: Toward an Ethnos-Conscious Approach (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2019), 111–113. 58. Josephus, Ant. 9.288–291; 10.183–184; 11.340–347. 59. Josephus, Ant. 9.291. 60. Josephus, Ant. 9.291. 61. Josephus, Ant. 11.114–119. 62. Josephus, Ant. 9.288; 11.341. 63. Gary Knoppers, Jews and the Samaritans: The Origins and History of their Early Relations (New York: Oxford, 2013), 3, 15, 42–44; Robert Anderson and Terry Giles, The Keepers: An Introduction to the History and Culture of the Samaritans (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002), 15–17. 64. Sir 50:24–25. 65. m. Quidd. 4.3 66. Isocrates, Paneg. 4.24. 67. Plato, Menex. 245c–d. 68. Plato, Resp. 5.459d–e 69. Plato, Leg. 12.949e–950a. 70. Aristotle, Pol. 5.1303a–1303b 71. Euripides, Ion, 670–675. 72. Aristophanes, Av. 1012.

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73. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2:259–261; Plutarch, Lyc. 16.1–2. 74. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2:257. 75. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2:259–260. 76. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. rom. 1.89. 77. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. rom. 1,89. 78. Virgil, Aen. 12.835–845. 79. Isaac, Invention of Racism, 109. 80. Tacitus, Germ. 46. 81. Livy, 38.17.9–11. 82. Dio Chrysostom, Nicaeen. 39.1. 83. Tacitus, Germ. 2. 84. Stewart Penwell, Jesus the Samaritan: Ethnic Labeling in the Gospel of John (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 138. 85. Sallust, Cat. 11.5. 86. Livy, 38.17.12. 87. McCoskey, Race, 46–48. 88. Herodotus, 9.122. 89. Hippocrates, Air, Water, Places, 16.40–43. 90. Plato, Leg. 747d–e. 91. Thucydides, 1.94–95. 92. Polybius, His. 4.21. 93. Flavius Vegetius Renatus, Mil. inst. rom. 1.2. 94. Ovid, Tr. 3.10.1–5; 5.2.60–70. 95. Ovid, Tr. 1.1.60. 96. Ovid, Tr. 3.1.20. 97. Ovid, Tr. 3.14.40–52. 98. Ovid, Tr. 5.5.5. 99. Ovid, Tr. 5.7.55–65. 100. Ovid, Tr. 5.10.35. 101. Ovid, Tr. 5.12.55. 102. Plutarch, Alex. 45.1–2. 103. Plutarch, Alex. 45.2. 104. Quintus Curtius Rufus, Hist. alex. 6.6.7. 105. Quintus Curtius Rufus, Hist. alex. 6.6.10. 106. Arrian, Ana. alex. 7.6.5. 107. Plutarch, Alex. 47.3. 108. Brown, Community, 37–40; John Bowman, The Samaritan Problem: Studies in the Relationships of Samaritanism, Judaism, and Early Christianity (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 1975), 68. 109. Barnabas Lindars, The Gospel of John (London: Oliphants, 1972), 35–42. 110. Troels Engberg-Pedersen, John and Philosophy: A New Reading of the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Oxford University, 2017), 28–35.

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111. Sjef Van Tilborg, Reading John in Ephesus (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 3. 112. Acts 13:43; 14:1; 17:4; 18:4. 113. Edith Hall, Introducing the Ancient Greeks: From Bronze Age Seafarers to Navigators of the Western Mind (New York: Norton, 2014), 250. 114. Martin Bernal, Black Athena. The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization Volume I: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985 (NJ: Rutgers University, 2020), 1–3. 115. Herodotus, 6.55. 116. Kostas Vlassopoulos, Greeks and Barbarians (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 11. 117. Matt 8:28; 15:21–28; Mark 7:24–31; Luke 8:26. 118. Arnaldo Momigliano, Alien Wisdom: The Limits of Hellenization (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University, 1971), 81. 119. Aelius, Ora. 46; Diodorus, 34.1.1–5; 40.3.1–2; Josephus, Ant. 14.213–216, 244–246, 259–264; 16.172; 19.287–291. 120. Adrian Sherwin-White, Racial Prejudice in Imperial Rome (New York: Cambridge, 1970), 90. 121. Peter Schäfer, Judeophobia: Attitudes toward the Jews in the Ancient World (MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 143–160. 122. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 1.165–166. 123. Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 11. 124. Porphyry, Abst. 2.26. 125. Diodorus, 40.3.3. 126. Diodorus, 40.3.5. 127. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 1.200–204. 128. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 1.204. 129. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 1.176. 130. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.168. 131. Momigliano, Alien Wisdom, 91. 132. J. P. V. D. Balsdon, Romans and Aliens (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1979), 33. 133. Plutarch, Cat. Maj. 23.1. 134. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.79. 135. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.80. 136. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.112–114. 137. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.114. 138. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.95. 139. “Foreigners must not enter inside the balustrade or into the forecourt around the sanctuary. Whoever is caught will have himself to blame for his ensuing death.” Translation from Readings from the First-Century World: Primary Sources for New Testament Study, ed. Walter A. Elwell and Robert W. Yarbrough (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998), 83; Josephus, J.W. 5.194; 6.124–128; Ant. 8.95; 12.145–146; 15.417.

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140. Plutarch, Quaest. conv. 4.6. 141. Plutarch, Quaest. conv. 4.6.2. 142. Plutarch, Quaest. conv. 4.6.2. 143. Herodotus, 2.50.1–2. 144. Herodotus, 1.30.1–3; 2.177.2; Plato, Tim. 21c–25e. 145. Herodotus, 1.30.3. 146. Plato, Tim. 22b. 147. Vasconcelos, Cosmic, 25–26. 148. Vasconcelos, Cosmic, 17. 149. Vasconcelos, Cosmic, 22. 150. Vasconcelos, Cosmic, 35. 151. J. Daniel Hays, From Every People and Nation: A Biblical Theology of Race (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 160. 152. Benko, Race, 211–212.

References Álvarez, Daniel Orlando. “El Mestizaje: Un Tema Teológico Que Une Y Provee Identidad A Las Comunidades Latinas.” Hechos 2.2 (2020): 3–20. Anderson, Paul. “Anti-Semitism and Religious Violence as Flawed Interpretations of the Gospel of John.” Pages 265–311  in John and Judaism: A Contested Relationship in Context. Edited by Ray Alan Culpepper and Paul Anderson. Atlanta: SBL, 2017. Anderson, Robert and Terry Giles. The Keepers: An Introduction to the History and Culture of the Samaritans. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002. Aponte, Edwin David, and Miguel De La Torre. Introducing Latinx Theologies. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 2020. Aquino, Jorge. “Mestizaje: The Latina/o Religious Imaginary in the North American Racial Crucible.” Pages 281–311 in The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Latino/a Theology. Edited by Orlando Espín. Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons, 2015. Balsdon, John Percy Vyvian Dacre. Romans and Aliens. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC, 1979. Benko, Andrew. Race in John’s Gospel: Toward an Ethnos-Conscious Approach. Lanham, MD: Fortress Press, 2019. Bernal, Martin. Black Athena. The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization Volume I: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985. New Jersey: Rutgers University, 2020. Blomberg, Craig. The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel: Issues & Commentary. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2001. Bowman, John. The Samaritan Problem: Studies in the Relationships of Samaritanism, Judaism, and Early Christianity. Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 1975.

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Brown, Raymond. The Gospel According to John 1–12. New York: Doubleday, 1966. ———. Community of the Beloved Disciple: The Life, Loves, and Hates of an Individual Church in New Testament Times. New York: Paulist, 1979. Culpepper, Ray Alan. Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1987. ———. “Anti-Judaism in the Fourth Gospel as a Theological Problem for Christian Interpreters.” Pages 61–82 in Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel. Edited by Reimund Bieringer et al. Louisville, KY: John Knox, 2001. Dixon, Suzanne. The Roman Family. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins, 1992. Dunn, James. “The Embarrassment of History: Reflections on the Problem of ‘Anti-Judaism’ in the Fourth Gospel.” Pages 41–60 in Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel. Edited by Reimund Bieringer et  al. Louisville, KY: John Knox, 2001. Elizondo, Virgilio. Galilean Journey: The Mexican American Promise. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1983. Elwell, Walter A., and Robert W. Yarbrough, eds. Readings from the First-Century World: Primary Sources for New Testament Study. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998. Engberg-Pedersen, Troels. John and Philosophy: A New Reading of the Fourth Gospel. Oxford: Oxford University, 2017. Estrada, Rodolfo. “Is a Contextualized Hermeneutic the Future of Pentecostal Readings? The Implications of a Pentecostal Hermeneutic for a Chicano/ Latino Community.” Pneuma 37.3 (2015): 341–355. ———. A Pneumatology of Race in the Gospel of John: An Ethnocritical Study. Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2019. ———. “White Evangelicals, White Supremacy, and the ‘Born Again’ Identity in a Post-Trump America: A Latino Rereading of John 3:1–8.” Horizon in Biblical Theology 44.1 (2022): 88–111. Gómez, Laura. Inventing Latinos: A New Story of American Racism. New York: The New Press, 2020. Gonzalez, Justo. Santa Biblia: The Bible through Spanish Eyes. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1996. ———. The Mestizo Augustine: A Theologian between Two Cultures. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2016. Hakola, Ramio. Reconsidering Johannine Christianity: A Social Identity Approach. New York: Routledge, 2015. Hall, Edith. Introducing the Ancient Greeks: From Bronze Age Seafarers to Navigators of the Western Mind. New York: Norton, 2014. Hays, J.  Daniel. From Every People and Nation: A Biblical Theology of Race. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003. Isaac, Benjamin. The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton, 2004.

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Isasi-Díaz, Ada María. Mujerista Theology. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1996. Johnson, Luke Timothy. “Anti-Judaism and the New Testament.” Pages 1609–1638 in Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus Vol 2. Edited by Tom Holmén and Stanley Porter. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Kang, Hanna. “Mestizos/as with an Asian Face.” Perspectivas 18 (2021): 43–60. Kim, Jean. “A Korean Feminist Reading of John 4:1–42.” Semeia 78 (1997): 109–119. Knoppers, Gary. Jews and the Samaritans: The Origins and History of their Early Relations. New York: Oxford, 2013. Leibig, Janis. “John and The Jews: Theological Antisemitism in the Fourth Gospel.” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 20.2 (1983): 209–234. Lindars, Barnabas. The Gospel of John. London: Oliphants, 1972. McCoskey, Denise. Race: Antiquity and Its Legacy. New York: Oxford, 2012. Medina, Néstor. Mestizaje: (Re)mapping Race, Culture and Faith in Latina/o Catholicism. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 2009. Metzger, Bruce. A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament. Germany: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994. Momigliano, Arnaldo. Alien Wisdom: The Limits of Hellenization. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1971. O’Day, Gail. “Gospel of John.” Pages 517–530  in Women’s Bible Commentary. Edited by Carol A.  Newsom, Sharon H.  Ringe, and Jacqueline E.  Lapsley. Louisville, KY: Westminster, 2012. Penwell, Stewart. Jesus the Samaritan: Ethnic Labeling in the Gospel of John. Leiden: Brill, 2019. Pomata, Gianna. “Blood Ties and Semen Ties: Consanguinity and Agnation in Roman Law.” Pages 43–64  in Gender, Kinship, Power: A Comparative and Interdisciplinary History. Edited by Mary Maynes, Ann Waltner, et  al. New York: Routledge, 1996. Rainbow, Paul. Johannine Theology: The Gospel, The Epistles, and the Apocalypse. Michigan: InterVarsity, 2014. Reinhartz, Adele. Befriending the Beloved Disciple: A Jewish Reading of the Gospel of John. New York: Continuum International, 2001. ———. “Judaism in the Gospel of John.” Interpretation 63.4 (2009): 382–393. Rodríguez, Rubén Rosario. Racism and God-Talk: A Latino/a Perspective. New York: New York University Press, 2008. Romero, Robert Chao. Brown Church: Five Centuries of Latina/o Social Justice, Theology, and Identity. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2020. Santiago-Vendrell, Angel. “Constructing Race in Puerto Rico: The Colonial Legacy of Christianity and Empires, 1510-1910.” Pages 150–173  in Can ‘White’ People be Saved? Triangulating Race, Theology, and Mission. Edited by Love Sechrest, Johnny Ramírez-Johnson, and Amos Yong. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2018.

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Schäfer, Peter. Judeophobia: Attitudes toward the Jews in the Ancient World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998. Sheridan, Ruth. “Issues in Translating οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι in the Fourth Gospel.” Journal of Biblical Literature 132.3 (2013): 671–695. Sherwin-White, Adrian. Racial Prejudice in Imperial Rome. New  York: Cambridge, 1970. Thatcher, Tom. “John and the Jews: Recent Research and Future Questions.” Pages 3–38 in John and Judaism: A Contested Relationship in Context. Edited by Ray Alan Culpepper and Paul Anderson. Atlanta: SBL, 2017. Tilborg, Sjef van. Reading John in Ephesus. Leiden: Brill, 1996. Vasconcelos, José. The Cosmic Race: A Bilingual Edition. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University, 1997. Vlassopoulos, Kostas. Greeks and Barbarians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Wahlde, Urban von, “The Jews in the Gospel of John: Fifteen Years of Research 1983-1998.” Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 76.1 (2000): 30–55.

CHAPTER 7

The Prologue and Roman Conquest: Bartolomé de Las Casas and Roman Representation

Death and destruction followed the Spaniards when they came to the Americas. Wives of indigenous kings were raped, and children were butchered or burned alive to satisfy base appetites. These atrocities and more are recounted by Bartolomé de Las Casas’s Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies. It must be noted that the Spanish Catholic Church justified and blessed these wars on the grounds that it was within their authority to expand their rule to the entire world. Juan López de Palacios Rubios wrote a legal document called the Requerimiento, which was pronounced before a military siege.1 It begins by describing the Spanish military as representatives of the Spanish kingdom and as descendants of the first humans that God created. After a lengthy introduction, the indigenous people are given an opportunity to “recognize the church as lord and superior of the universal world,” which includes the Pope and Spanish king.2 If they do not, then the following will result: With the help of God, I will enter forcefully against you, and I will make war everywhere and however I can, and I will subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church and His majesty, and I will take your wives and children, and I will make them slaves… and I will take your goods, and I will do to you all the evil and damage that a lord may do to vassals who does not obey or receive him.3

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Galvan Estrada III, A Latino Reading of Race, Kinship, and the Empire, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20305-3_7

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Often, the indigenous people would not understand the implications of the Requerimiento. Las Casas remarks that on some occasions, the people were immediately killed after it was read.4 The point was not to provide an opportunity to live peacefully with the newly arrived Spaniards. It was a legal pretense to justify the right to rule.5 The Requerimiento was a tool of the empire to pacify its conscience and blind it from its dehumanizing treatment of indigenous people. The conquest of the Americas was thus both religiously and legally authorized. I begin this chapter with the Spanish conquest of the Americas to awaken our imagination to a new way of reading the Apostle John’s prologue as an anti-Roman story. Enrique Dussel notices that the Spanish Empire emerged similarly to the Roman Empire, stating, “a region was occupied militarily, then pacified, a government formed, and the people of the area converted to the religion of the invaders.”6 Throughout Bartolomé’s narrative, we observe that the Spaniards come in God’s name; the indigenous people welcome them; and then the Spaniards subdue, kill, enslave, or rob the indigenous people’s land and natural resources. Said more specifically, there is an arrival of the emissary, a reaction to the emissary, and then a response from the emissary. Most importantly, this pattern of arrival, reaction, and response also plots the way that the Logos is portrayed within the Johannine prologue. I want to make it clear that although this is a Latino interpretation, I am not simply reimagining scenarios that are inconsistent with the Roman imperial context. The conquest of Latin America was dependent upon dehumanizing biblical interpretations that justified atrocities against indigenous people. As Elsa Tamez notes, “for various Indigenous peoples the Christian canon is an enemy of Indigenous life” and the Bible has been returned to Christians because of its use as an “instrument of oppression.”7 I am deeply aware of these factors and how the Bible has been used as a weapon against indigenous people. Although this chapter is not about the nature of empires, it is about the Roman representatives in the gospel and how Roman power is portrayed. Roman power, nonetheless, is also understood in relation to imperialism. I agree with the insights of Andrew Erskine and Mary Beard, who define imperium as the power or authority of the Roman people over others. Imperialism is another way of thinking about the sphere of authority, which can be territorial, but primarily understood as having command over people.8 As Neville Morley describes, it is a “persistent aggression and

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drive to conquer.”9 This command through military superiority and political power was a major facet of both Spain’s and Rome’s political identity. However, I affirm with Edward Said that imperialism is not just about the control of distant lands but also about the rhetoric, attitudes, and ideologies that undergird that control and conquest.10 These ideologies fuel imperial power and marked both Rome and Spain’s conquering identity.

Preliminary Thoughts on Spaniard and Roman Imperialism Although no documented account like Las Casas’s exists in Roman literature, this does not suggest that there are works that come close to or include similar themes. Tacitus’s Agricola, which will be discussed, portrays the impact of Roman imperialism upon the Britons. Other Roman writers were highly self-critical of their imperial greatness. We must recognize, as Thomas Habinek points out, Roman literature itself is a medium in which Roman elites sought to “advance their interests over and against other sources of political authority.”11 In other words, their literature was a way of seeking or maintaining power in the Roman world and an attempt to influence how reality is perceived.12 It is not a reflection of reality as it would have been understood from a non-Roman perspective. Second, my exploration of these Greco-Roman writers also aims to draw out the overlooked narratives that counter a grandiose and benevolent portrait of the Roman Empire. I do so because I believe that like the Spaniards during European colonization of the Americas, when the Romans extended their political authority during the Republic, they too brought conquest, submission, or enslavement of indigenous people. This is a common pattern with imperial powers in the history of Latin America and also found in Roman expansion over the Mediterranean world. These aspects describe the uncelebrated realities of conquest. It is what empires do. But it is not always how Rome would characterize its mission and justify its conquest. Indeed, Morley remarks that the “image of the Roman Empire as the bringer of peace, order, prosperity and civilization to the conquered provinces” is so embedded in western culture that criticizing imperialism in general is difficult.13 Third, I am also cognizant of the fact that not all Romans presumed to negatively impact the people they ruled, and I presume that the Spaniards would not have characterized their mission to the Americas as Las Casas

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describes. The Romans positively described their conquest of foreign lands. However, as previously mentioned, Said argues that imperialism is not simply about accumulating land. It is a system supported by the ideological assumption that “certain territories and people require and beseech domination” because they are inferior, subordinate, and less advanced.14 Part of this ideological assumption was the Roman conviction that they were divinely charged with extending civilization to the uncivilized. Theology is part of the imperial ideology, both with Rome in the first century and with the Spaniards in the sixteenth century. Finally, a facet of imperial expansion includes portraying the conquered with racially inferior ideas and images. As Said states, “all cultures tend to make representations of foreign cultures the better to master or in some way control them.”15 The racial rhetoric in European literature, as Said finds, presumes that civilization comes to “primitive or barbaric peoples” for their own benefit, even when they resist or protest European rule.16 Racial ideologies indeed fuel imperial acquisitions. It is not ironic that Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda who debated against Las Casas in 1550 also drew upon racial portrayals in order to justify the conquest of the Americas. He described the indigenous people as “unrefined, irrational, and idolatrous creatures … who needed a superior civilization and religion to discipline and educate them for their own good.”17 By doing so, he racially justifies the Spaniard treatment of the indigenous people and echoes a common Roman argument for imperialism. Racial representations are not new or limited to the Spanish, British, or American empires; they are also found in the articulation of Roman dominance. I therefore first review Bartolomé’s Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies in order to demonstrate the common pattern of Spanish arrival and the results that ensue. Second, I identify how Roman literature reflects these patterns. Last, I include these findings for a new anti-Roman reading of the prologue with a focus on the racial portrayal of the Romans within the gospel of John. My reading will also point out how the prologue of John anticipates conflict with Roman powers and contrasts Jesus’s coming to the world with the coming of imperial Rome to Judea. May this stir us not only to notice how the prologue shapes our racial imagination but also to provide a new way of thinking about how the portrayal of Jesus in the prologue contrasts Roman occupation.

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Bartolomé’s Account of European Conquest in the Americas The conquest of the Americas by the Spaniards was done on the pretense that those who arrived were coming in God’s name and dominion. Dussel’s analysis of Latin American history notices how those in Spain presumed a unified destiny between the nation and the Church: “Hispanic Christianity, it was believed, was unique in that the nation had been elected by God to be the instrument for the salvation of the world.”18 He finds that the Church gave the Portuguese and Spanish governments the authority to colonize and evangelize the Americas. Although the primary purpose of the conquest was missional, this goal was negated by economic concerns.19 It is not difficult to thus notice why the indigenous people in the Americas viewed Christianity and the Spanish Empire as one and the same. Indeed, Eduardo Galeano notices that “the sword and the cross marched together in the conquest and plunder of Latin America.”20 Many Europeans who came on behalf of the Spanish crown professed to be Christians. For the indigenous people, the arrival of the Spaniards was perceived to be the arrival of God. Within this context, Las Casas engages his mission. Born in 1484, Las Casas documented the oppression of the indigenous people when the Spanish and other European colonizers settled the regions from 1509 to 1542.21 The goal of his documentation was to make King Charles V aware of the atrocities and convince him to end the cruel treatment of the indigenous people.22 He proposes a peaceful evangelization of the indigenous people and vigorously argues in their defense before the king and Church leaders. In fact, he was one of the earliest Christian missionaries who argued for the human rights, which still inspires social justice advocates today.23 Various episodes in Las Casas’s narrative reflect a pattern of Spanish imperial arrival, response by the indigenous people, and the Spaniard reaction, which includes death, destruction, slavery, or submission. I specifically highlight these aspects in my review. When the Spanish first arrived at the region, the policy was that indigenous people either “adopt the Christian religion and swear allegiance to the Crown of Castile, or they will find themselves faced with military action … [and] taken prisoner.”24 Indeed, many people who lived in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Peru, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Mexico were killed and depopulated. The Spanish expedition, under the guise of a missionary effort and in the name of the king, simply came to conquer,

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murder, and greedily loot gold and natural resources. The arrival of the Spaniards was the impartation of death and destruction to the native people. In fact, Las Casas remarks that the Spaniards presume that their victories over the indigenous people “come from God,” and that their war upon the people was just. He continues: “they take care to give paeans of praise to the Lord and to recognize the part he has played in their success.”25 On one occasion, Las Casas describes the death of a leading indigenous leader named Hatuey who ruled Cuba. Hatuey warned his people that the Christians were coming and were going to kill and plunder their gold. Hatuey was eventually captured by the Spaniards and tied to a stake. A Franciscan friar attempted to assure him that he would go to heaven and enjoy glory and eternal rest if he believed in the Christian faith. The friar even explained that if Hatuey did not convert, he would go to hell and endure pain and torment. Hatuey had a moment of reflection before deciding. He asked the friar if Christians went to heaven. When the friar replied that they did, Hatuey immediately opted to go to hell so he would never see a Christian again.26 Hell was a better option for this indigenous king. Many others, like Hatuey, saw the death and destruction that followed and chose to run away from the God and gospel the Spaniards proclaimed. Were the reactions of the indigenous people always a desire to flee, hide, or escape the presence and arrival of the Spaniards? Certainly not. Las Casas observed that many indigenous people were very hospitable to the Europeans. They did not run away from the Spaniards at first sight. They welcomed them and the message of the gospel that the evangelists brought. He also explains that “the local people never gave the Spanish any cause whatever for the injury and injustice that was done to them in these campaigns … [but] behaved honorably.”27 Truly, they believed that the Europeans were gods. Las Casas continues: The indigenous peoples never did the Europeans any harm whatever; on the contrary, they believed them to have descended from the heavens, at least until they or their fellow-citizens had tasted, at the hands of these oppressors, a diet of robbery, murder, violence, and all other manner of trials and tribulations.28

Thus, the initial reaction of the indigenous people was that the Spanish emissaries were divine gods—immortal—and they welcomed them as

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such.29 On another occasion, Las Casas points out that the “local people came out to welcome them with smiling faces and bearing gifts.”30 Indeed, the indigenous people of Trinidad would receive the Dominican missionaries “as angels from heaven, listening with rapt attention and great emotion and joy” up until the point that they were deceived and witnessed their leaders being sold into slavery.31 In Venezuela, the indigenous people “warmly welcomed with singing and dancing, and with many unsolicited gifts of gold.”32 Las Casas also recounts another large province near the border of Santa Marta where the local people graciously welcomed the Europeans. They treated them as honored guests with ceremonial dancing and gifts of gold. In response, a German leader, described as a Protestant, captured and enslaved the people through trickery.33 Las Casas also notices that from Venezuela to Peru, this same German Protestant left a “grim trail of destruction … [that] turn[ed] what had been a fertile and populated area into one vast, scorched wasteland.”34 In the mainland of Florida, again, the people “received them joyfully and set before them a huge banquet, far more than they could eat.”35 In return, one of the Spaniard captains plundered the town, skewered the local leader and king, and committed many other acts of brutality.36 Las Casas also retells the written testimony of a Franciscan friar named Marcos de Miza, who admits that the people of Peru “are the best disposed of all the indigenous people of the New World towards the Europeans and have always treated them with openness and friendship.”37 Their leaders gifted gold and land to the Spaniards, never resisting their presence. In response and without provocation, the Spaniards burned alive their leader Atahualpa and his captain Chalcuchima and tortured another leader named Alvis from Quito. These Peruvian leaders came in peace, but the Spaniards came to conquer. The Franciscan friar de Miza believed that this duplicity was the Spaniards’ plan all along.38 Las Casas frequently portrays the Spaniards as an unnamed group that terrorizes, burns down homes, tortures local lords, and enslaves the indigenous people.39 Spaniards are represented as members of a cruel empire pretending to come in the name of God but only bringing death, destruction, submission, and slavery. On the other hand, Las Casas portrays the indigenous people as innocently welcoming, treating the Spaniards with honor, and viewing them as divine gods.40 Regardless of this warm reception—millions died, had their land stolen, and many were enslaved. Unlike the Logos who became flesh and brought life to the world, the Spaniards

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who came to a new world—although considered divine emissaries by the indigenous—brought the antithesis of life. Indeed, the oppressive Spaniard reaction to the warm hospitality of the indigenous people was so ubiquitous that it was a “general rule … [that] wherever the Spaniards set foot, right throughout the Americas, they subjected the native inhabitants to the cruelties, … killing these poor and innocent people, tyrannizing them, and oppressing them in the most abominable fashion.”41 These Spaniards had a tendency of turning populated and fertile regions into a wilderness. Though they came in the name of God and were believed to descend from the heavens, they only brought death and destruction. As Galeano says, “for the Indian, contact with the white man continues to be contact with death.”42 Reading the opening words of John’s gospel from this perspective makes us wonder, for example, how differently the Logos might have been received had the incarnation happened in the Americas. Would he too find many indigenous people running away from him in fear of being slaughtered or having their families tortured? The reaction to the Logos in the prologue was quite unlike the reaction that the Spaniards had from the indigenous people. When the Logos entered the world, hostility from the darkness and rejection from his people did result. The arrival of the Logos brought conflict, but not one person was subdued or sold into slavery for resisting the incarnate presence of the Logos. Who was dehumanized, tortured, or died? Whose land did the Logos take, whose riches did the Logos plunder, or what kings did the Logos burn alive? None. The prologue anticipates conflict with the darkness, but the reader will later recognize that this conflict only brought about torture and death to the Logos.

Roman Conquest and Foreign Land As previously mentioned, we do not have a Roman account parallel to that of Bartolomé’s record of indigenous experience and dehumanization. But Tacitus’s Agricola does come close. It provides a critique of Roman power by highlighting the negative impact the Romans have upon the indigenous people. This work centers upon Tacitus’s father-in-law, Agricola, a Roman military general and statesman. Tacitus includes several military confrontations between the Romans and the Britons and does not presume that Roman venture into foreign lands was a peaceful mission. In one episode, Tacitus describes Briton resistance when the Roman cavalry invaded and

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encamped around them. These Roman soldiers were eventually killed and subdued by the Britons, but Tacitus does not portray the Romans as mourning their loss or retreating from the region. Instead, they are joyful because they now had an excuse for war.43 This gave the Roman general Agricola an opportunity to respond to the manufactured threat, which the Romans created.44 Agricola victoriously defeated the resistors with several legions and auxiliary forces which, as Tacitus explains, “almost exterminated the whole tribe.”45 Agricola continued his conquest by terrorizing Britons and forcing those on nearby islands to surrender. As a result, Agricola “began to be regarded as a brilliant and a great man.”46 He achieved recognition and glory despite his desire to avoid drawing attention to himself. As Tacitus states: Nor even now did he turn his success to boastfulness, or talk about campaigns and victories, because he had held down a conquered people: he did not even follow up his achievement by affixing laurels to his dispatches; yet his very deprecation of glory increased his glory for eyes which could divine how great must be his hopes for the future when he made light of such a past.47

Though Tacitus positively portrays Agricola, this does not hide the fact that Agricola still reflects the violent reality of Roman imperialism. Agricola comes to a native land, does not receive the response he so desires, and reacts with brute violence until the indigenous people submit to Roman rule. This brute force and lack of self-aggrandizement, as Tacitus describes above, was considered true “glory.” Agricola was able to forcefully control the British tribes. Violence, however, was not the only way Agricola exercised Roman domination. Tacitus remarks that Agricola was a political reformer. He claims that Agricola understood that military occupation with injustice would not lead to political success but to continual war.48 For this reason, he explains that Agricola enacted economic reforms, pursued equity, and reduced the burdensome demands for tribute and grain.49 Tacitus notices that these reforms “cast a halo over such days of peace as the carelessness or arrogance of previous governors had made not less dreadful than war.”50 Tacitus further adds that Agricola “paraded” the attractions of peace, which allured many Britons and convinced them to give up their hostility toward Rome.51 Agricola also launched a series of public projects, which included the construction of temples, marketplaces, and houses. This

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Roman engagement with the native Britons aimed to dispel any desire for rebellion.52 This was more than just winning over hearts and minds. Tacitus states that Agricola began to train the sons of the chieftains in a liberal education, and to give a preference to the native talents of the Briton as against the trained abilities of the Gaul. As a result, the nation which used to reject the Latin language began to aspire to rhetoric: further, the wearing of our dress became a distinction, and the toga came into fashion, and little by little the Britons went astray into alluring vices: to the promenade, the bath, the well-appointed dinner table. The simple natives gave the name of “culture” to this factor of their slavery.53

The result of Agricola’s reforms led some tribes to adopt the Roman language and culture.54 Notice, however, that the adoption of Roman culture did not come overnight. This was a gradual process. The Britons were losing their racial identity as they became Roman. They started to speak Latin, dress like Romans, and participate in Roman luxuries. This was all a slow but steady process that the Romans would consider part of their “civilizing” imperial mission. Furthermore, while Tacitus recognizes that they were leaving behind their “native” ways, notice that he does not praise the Britons’ adoption of Roman identity. In fact, the reverse happened. As the Britons became Roman, they also became enslaved with all the vices that come with a Roman identity. And in this sense, Rome is not only threatening to take away the Britons’ land but also threatening their culture. Contact with the Romans, simply, is contact with cultural death. While Tacitus praises the virtuous character of Agricola, he does not censor how the indigenous Britons viewed the imperial expansion of Rome. Through the voice of resistors, Tacitus also provides a portrait of Rome’s tyranny and greed. In another scene, Agricola is campaigning in the farthest shores of Britain and engages some Britons who were led by a chieftain named Calgacus. These Britons recognized that this encounter with the Romans was either “vengeance or slavery.”55 Calgacus addresses his army and describes them as being composed of Britons “untouched by slavery … [and the] noblest souls in all Britain.”56 Recognizing that no other tribes will come to fight with them, he rallies them to fight for liberty and against the tyranny of Rome. Calgacus frames his speech as the last stand by portraying the Roman Empire with violent and hostile imagery:

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Robbers of the world, now that earth fails their all-devastating hands, they probe even the sea. If their enemy have wealth, they have greed; if he be poor, they are ambitious; East nor west has glutted them; alone of mankind they covet with the same passion want as much as wealth. To plunder, butcher, steal, these things they misname empire: the make a desolation and they call it peace.57

Furthermore, Calgacus continues to explain to the Britons that the Romans would enslave their children, have their wives handed over to lustful soldiers, their goods and agriculture taken as tributes, and forced to make roads.58 From the perspective of Calgacus, the Romans do not bring peace. Instead, they bring violence and death, and they rob natural resources from indigenous lands. Rome, despite its promise of peace and culture, really extends enslavement, desecration of temples, and the dispossession of resources and families in the name of the empire. Calgacus recognizes that this war against the Romans is for the preservation of their freedom, land, and family, thus placing this battle at a crucial turning point in their history.59 Further Imperial Ideologies: Religious and Racial Rhetoric Tacitus’s Agricola reveals the Roman assumption that they had an imperial mandate to conquer foreign lands, bring the indigenous people under their submission, and use violence and all other means necessary to eradicate resistance. The Romans also justified their conquest with religious and racial rhetoric that justified atrocities and pacified its conscience. The Romans viewed themselves as the bringers of peace and civilization, people chosen by the gods to exert political control and dominion over the world. Pliny the Elder famously presumes Roman rule as in the best interest of the conquered. He asserts that Rome was chosen by the gods to unite the scattered empires of the earth, bestow a polish upon [humanity’s] manners, unite the discordant and uncouth dialects of so many different nations by the powerful ties of one common language, confer the enjoyments of discourse and of civilization upon mankind, to become … the mother-country of all nations of the earth. (Nat. 2.6)

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This assertion assumes that Roman civilization becomes the baseline to judge all foreign cultures. It also presumes that all non-Romans are culturally, linguistically, and socially inferior. It is a highly ethnocentric way of viewing the other. Together, it gives Rome the assumption that their imperial mission includes the responsibility to improve humanity. John Balsdon notes that since there was no rival to Rome and its success, Rome considered this reality proof of divine favor, even claiming to be God’s own people.60 Similarly, Benjamin Isaac remarks that the “Romans considered themselves superior in various ways and entitled to rule eastern peoples [whom they] regarded as militarily inferior.”61 What was the imperial ideology that supported this reality? They drew upon a religious and racial rhetoric to justify their superiority and mission to civilize all humanity. Vitruvius Pollio, a Roman architect in the first century BC, describes the reason why there are different homes in cold and hot climates. He utilizes an environmental theory to explain why different racial groups have inferior qualities. For Vitruvius, these southern and northern climates detrimentally impact the formation of the body, intelligence, voice, and courage in battle.62 Since Rome is situated “under the middle of the heaven, … [it resides in a] truly perfect territory.”63 From this, he argues that the Roman people are superior, both bodily and mentally, able to conquer and outwit barbarians. He asserts: The races of Italy are the most perfectly constituted in both respects—in bodily form and in mental activity to correspond to their valor… And so by her wisdom she breaks the courageous onsets of the barbarians, and by her strength of hand thwarts the devices of the southerners. Hence, it was the divine intelligence that set the city of the Roman people in a peerless and temperate country, in order that it might acquire the right to command the whole world. (De arch. 6.1.11)

As the aforementioned quote demonstrates, Rome is in a geographically superior environment that develops the strongest and wisest people. For this reason, they are the only racially superior people who have the right to rule all foreign nations. It is thus not difficult to extend the racial logic that Vitruvius and others like him would have supposed. They would have presumed that their imperial expansion was the project of racially superior Romans who bring civilization and culture to inferiors. The Romans certainly had reasons for this lofty view of themselves. They had unparalleled success in military conquest, rule over foreigners,

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and economic influence throughout the Mediterranean world.64 Indeed, Polybius, a Greek historian, marveled how the Romans were able to achieve dominance in such short time. He writes that the Romans have subjected “the whole of the world” and possess an empire which “need not fear rivalry in the future.”65 Roman military supremacy was also explained in terms of its ability to maintain an army that could adapt to any battlefield.66 This dominance was also proclaimed in Virgil’s Aeneid in the form of a religious prophecy. Virgil places on the mouth of the Roman god, Jupiter, the claim that Romulus’s lineage will have “no bounds in space or time … [and an] empire without end.”67 As such, Rome was destined to “rule the world, … crown peace with justice, to spare the vanquished, and to crush the proud.”68 Roman rule in the Aeneid resonates deeply with images of conquest, power, and glory.69 David Quint remarks that the Aeneid itself is part of “Augustan propaganda that seeks to suppress and rewrite Rome’s political memory.”70 This political propaganda, which Virgil writes, includes the theological conviction that the Roman Empire has been divinely destined to rule the world and has thus found fulfillment in the life of Caesar Augustus, the first Roman emperor. The Roman historian, Livy, echoes a similar religious sentiment. He writes that Romulus, the founder of Rome, was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind and ascribed after his death “divine origin” and “divinity.”71 The soldiers present during the storm “hailed Romulus as a god and a god’s son” and with prayers besought his favor and protection.72 He then further records a vision of Proculus Julius who claimed that Romulus had appeared to him at night. In this vision, Romulus tells Julius, “Go and declare to the Romans the will of heaven that my Rome shall be the capital of the world, so let them cherish the art of war and let them know and teach their children that no human strength can resist Roman arms.”73 Like Virgil, who bolsters Roman supremacy with theological beliefs, Livy also asserts that Roman dominion has been destined as a result of their lineage to the god, Mars. He writes: [S]o great is the military glory of the Roman people that when they profess that their father and the father of their founder was none other than Mars, the nations of the earth may well submit to this also with as good a grace as they submit to Rome’s dominion. (Hist. pref. 1.8)

A similar religious and racial justification for Roman imperialism can also be found in the writing of the Roman statesman, Cicero. In Cicero’s

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speech against Catiline, he champions the belief that the gods defend the city of Rome, its temples, and its buildings with their divine power. He asserts, “these gods, citizens, have ordained that this city be the most beautiful, the most prosperous, the most powerful in the world.”74 But Cicero does not merely speak of Rome’s greatness that was prophesied by the gods (such as Virgil) or the result of having a divine founder (as Livy does), he explains it by also bolstering Rome’s supremacy with racial rhetoric. He continues: Let us, O conscript fathers, think as highly of ourselves as we please; and yet it is not in numbers that we are superior to the Spaniards, nor in personal strength to the Gauls, nor in cunning to the Carthaginians, nor in arts to the Greeks, nor in the natural acuteness which seems to be implanted in the people of this land and country, to the Italian and Latin tribes; but it is in and by means of piety and religion, and this especial wisdom of perceiving that all things are governed and managed by the divine power of the immortal gods, that we have been and are superior to all other countries and nations. (De har. resp. 19)

Notice how Roman racial rhetoric and theological beliefs fits with the realities of the empire. This belief that Roman devotion to the gods brought about the divine favor and right to rule the world is also reflected in the second century CE by the Christian apologist Marcus Minucius Felix. Like Cicero, he asserts that since the Romans worship all the gods of the people they conquer, they “also won themselves an empire.”75 They are superior to all races and have thus conquered the world because they were able to perceive that the gods are in control. Yes, they may be deficient in other areas in comparison to the Spaniards, Gauls, Carthaginians, or Greeks, but only the Romans have responded favorably to the gods. As we can observe with these Roman writers, it is the theological beliefs and practices that separate the Romans from all others. This religious devotion to the gods, along with notions of racial superiority, becomes another facet that justifies Roman imperialism. The Romans have emerged as the sole rulers of the world because they are simply the most pious, the strongest, and wisest of all races. My focus on these two imperial ideologies—religious devotion and racial superiority—does not suppose that these were the only views. Roman writers also attest to the variety of motivations.76 Livy explains that the Romans were drawn into a war with the Samnites not by their own

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making and thus became the rulers of Italy.77 Cicero makes a similar claim when he suggests that the Romans, by “defending their allies have gained dominion over the whole world.”78 The Greek writer Polybius writes that the Romans engaged in the first Punic War on the pretense that the Carthaginians would become troublesome neighbors.79 He also notes that the Roman Senate decided to wage war against Dalmatians in 157 BCE because they “did not at all want the Italians to become effeminate owing to the long peace,” given that it had been twelve years since war with the Macedonians.80 Too much peace was dangerous. Tacitus even concedes that too much peace would lead the army to a loss of morals and discipline.81 Indeed, William Harris finds that the regular warfare of the Romans was supported by an “ideology of glory and good repute.”82 War, in this sense, was waged to revitalize the Roman people. It was rationalized based on a fear of the other. It was an antidote to the decline of Roman masculinity. Economic factors also played a role in the reasoning process. Plautus, the Roman comic, sarcastically places on the lips of Epidicus the statement, “I’ll now call a council in my heart to adopt measures about this money business, against whom, in especial, war is to be declared, and out of whom I’m to get the money.”83 Polybius notices that it was reasonable for the Romans to take the spoils of war from wealthy cities. He writes, “it was impossible for them to aim at universal empire without crippling the means of the rest of the world” and thus transferring all the conquered resources to Rome.84 Harris also acknowledges that “desire for economic gain was an important factor predisposing senators to take aggressive and interventionist decisions in foreign policy.”85 Although Eric Gruen argues that business or economic interests were insufficient to maintain the empire, he admits that “only the naïve or myopic will deny that Romans perceived, indeed welcomed the economic advantages of conquest.”86 Although various factors explain imperial growth, we cannot deny the input of the racial and theological ideologies. To summarize, the Romans believed that they had divine favor, founded by a divine son of God, or presumed to have been chosen by the gods to become rulers of the world. Truly, if one believes that the gods are on your side, why not engage in an imperial expansion? Even more, would this not suppose that they are the emissaries of the gods given that their conquest of the Mediterranean world was divinely foretold and for the betterment of humanity? Roman religious convictions supported their conquest of foreigners. Combined with the supposition that they were racially superior to foreigners, we can

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better understand how the Roman war machine was built and maintained. Simply put, the gods have destined Rome to rule all foreigners, so when they arrive in distant lands they are there because they have been divinely foretold to have an empire without end. This Roman religious and racial ideology must contribute to our understanding of the Logos’s divine arrival to a new world, a new environment where he, too, met people and encountered some who resisted his presence. John’s prologue has a particular focus on the coming presence of the Logos, the opposition received, and the response of those who had faith. This divine entrance into the world starkly contrasts all journeys to different environments by captains, military generals, or Roman armies. Although the prologue does not mention the Romans by name, there are several statements there that allude to their presence. In fact, when Romans later appear in the narrative, they too are described as coming to Judea— similar language that echoes the divine Logos’s coming into the world (John 11:48).

Roman Representation in the Prologue and Gospel of John When the Logos comes to the world, he does not bring death or destruction to those who refuse to acknowledge his presence. As the creator, the Logos was the light (φῶς) that shined (φαίνει) in the darkness and (φωτίζει) upon all humanity (1:5, 9). The prologue hints as a universal and worldwide mission to all people. There is no one, no racial group or region of the created world that is beyond the reach of the Logos. In this global effort, however, there is resistance to the presence of the Logos that comes from the “darkness” (v. 5). Conflict immediately emerges in response to the light. The prologue affirms that the “darkness could not overcome (κατέλαβεν) the light” (v. 5). The darkness, an entity antithetical to the life and light of the Logos, stands in opposition to the light’s identity and desires to extinguish the Logos. With these words the readers are given hints of hostile violence that will emerge in the gospel. Who are these people who attempt to eradicate the presence of the Logos? Is the identity of the “darkness” merely a spiritual or moral metaphor? Or is the prologue revealing something more concrete and reflective of real people. I believe it is the latter.

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To uncover the representatives of the “darkness,” there is a turn to understanding the meaning and proper translation of κατέλαβεν. As I have noted in the previous chapters, there are ambiguity and interpretive challenges with this term. For a brief review, some scholars, such as Rudolf Bultmann, suggest that these verses summarize the rejection of revelation that is found within the gospel.87 This suggests that κατέλαβεν should be properly translated as “understand” and thus implying that the ignorant are representatives of the darkness. But other interpretations translate this term more broadly. Craig Keener believes that this encapsulates the whole of Jesus’s incarnate ministry and that the darkness “implies Jesus’s opposition among ‘the Jews’ and in the world in general which they represent.”88 Thus, the “darkness” can include anyone. Likewise, Juan Mateos and Juan Barreto suggesting that κατέλαβεν denotes a violent response of the religious authorities. They believe that this refers to “la institución judía la que pretenda extinguir la luz dando muerte a Jesús a propuesta del sumo sacerdote en persona.”89 Their reading presumes that the darkness includes those of the religious institution who recommended, planned, or participated in Jesus’s death. How are we to understand the proper meaning of κατέλαβεν and the identity of the “darkness” in v. 5? Contemporary interpretations consider the entirety of the gospel in order to make sense of this verse. This includes interpretating the verse in light of specific individuals, such as Nicodemus, or more broadly a reference to Jewish leaders who oppose Jesus. We may even presume that the darkness refers to spiritual ignorance or blindness given that John 12:35 includes a warning to the Jewish crowds of the coming darkness that will overtake them. Indeed, Peter Phillips recognizes the difficulties in identifying the darkness and how one should proper understand its reaction: “the innocent reader, the first time reader, the non-Johannine reader are left, for the time being, to their own devices, to add their own details to John’s sketchy outline.”90 He further adds that κατέλαβεν can refer to an “act of aggression” or “an act of comprehension,” although he views aggression as the more likely understanding of the term.91 Fernando Segovia takes a post-colonial reading of the prologue and affirms its political overtones. He notes that the gospel advances a view of Jesus and his followers in conflict with the ruling circles of Judea, the overseeing masters of imperial Rome, and the ruler of the demonic world.92 Specifically, he suggests that according to the prologue, “not only Rome and Judaea but also all powers-that-be and all human beings in the this-world stand in darkness and death as well as in falsehood and sin.”93

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As such, Segovia’s reading is similar to Keener’s in that it is broad but differs in the sense that it recognizes the political overtones. Like Segovia, I believe that the Roman imperial powers manifest the identity of the darkness in the crucifixion and conflict with Jesus. The “darkness” is often taken to mean the Jewish people within the narrative who do not understand Jesus. But by the time we finish reading the gospel, Rome fully resembles the activity of death, destruction, and violence associated with the darkness’s identity, reaction, and opposition to the Logos of life and light. As mentioned in Chap. 4, Qumran literature utilizes this dualistic language of light and darkness to represent the conflict between Gentile empires and the people of God.94 By interpreting “darkness” and “κατέλαβεν” in reference to Rome, this also suggests that we must make this connection by reading Rome back into the prologue. While one may critique this interpretive move, is this not what most interpretations do to make sense of this verse? As we will further find within the gospel, this is exactly how the Romans are portrayed. As I argue, it only when we consider the entire gospel does the identity of the darkness clearly emerge. The conflict between the light and darkness encapsulates a Roman imperial attempt to vanquish the Logos. The prologue codes the reality of violence that will manifests itself in the physical execution of the incarnate Logos at the hands of Roman authorities. The Romans in John 11:48 The only gospel that mentions the Romans by name is John. No other gospel explicitly mentions the “Romans” (οἱ Ῥωμαῖοι) within its narrative. In John, the Romans appear in 11:45–53 when the religious leaders gather to discuss how they should respond to the crowd’s reaction to Jesus. What prompted this gathering was Jesus’s miraculous act of raising Lazarus from the dead (11:1–44). This miracle caused many to believe in Jesus, which led some Jews to send a report to the Pharisees about the impact of these miracles on the people (v. 45). The religious leaders recognize that if Jesus continues leading many people to faith, then the Romans will come to Judea and place it under subjugation. They make the following claim: If we allow him to continue, everyone will believe in him (πάντες πιστεύσουσιν εἰς αὐτόν), and the Romans (οἱ Ῥωμαῖοι) will come (ἐλεύσονται) and take away our place and our people. (11:48)

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Here, it is belief in Jesus that will prompt total Roman colonization and loss of land and power. Said differently, believing in Jesus’s name will draw violent imperial reaction from the Roman authorities. The narrative states that the Romans will take away the Jewish “place” (τόπον) and “people” or possibly “nation” (ἔθνος). This conveys the imagery of exile, occupation of land, and possible destruction of the Jerusalem temple. The Romans are portrayed as invaders who will come with brute force and respond to those who believe in Jesus. This statement on the lips of the Jewish religious leaders also suggests that they recognize that the coming of the Romans also means a loss of power as Roman allies. The mention of the Romans should provide the reader with a deeper understanding of the prologue’s significance for several reasons. First, this very mission of the Logos, as mentioned in the prologue, is now anticipated in 11:48 to prompt a hostile reaction. The reader becomes aware of an inevitable conflict that will lead to death and destruction for simply believing in Jesus’s name as the prologue prescribes. In this sense, the mention of the “darkness” in 1:5 now becomes racially clarified as “the Romans” (οἱ Ῥωμαῖοι). Second, the coming of the Romans is also contrasted with the coming of the Logos. Within the prologue, the Logos’s coming (ἐρχόμενον) into the world (1:9, 11) utilizes the same verb that also describes the Romans who are feared to come (ἐλεύσονται) to Judea (11:48b). We can notice how both the prologue and the description of the Romans are linked with the similar term “ἔρχομαι.” The Romans come to bring death and destruction, whereas the Logos comes to bring life and revelation. Third, fear that all people will have faith in Jesus is a sole reason why the Romans would occupy the land and expel the Jewish people. Again, the prologue and the portrayal of the Romans in 11:48 share a striking linguistic resemblance. The prologue hopes that “all may believe (πάντες πιστεύσωσιν)” (1:7, 12). The Logos’s mission is for faith. But the coming the Romans is in response to a fear that “many will believe in him (πάντες πιστεύσουσιν εἰς αὐτόν)” (11:48). If the mission of the Logos is successful, this means that the Romans will come with violence. The coming of the Logos as outlined in the prologue will inevitably draw a hostile reaction from the Romans. This is the fear of the Jewish religious authorities. They recognize that Jesus and the Roman imperial authorities cannot coexist. The fear that the Romans would bring violence and destruction is not unwarranted. Although the conquest of various regions throughout the Mediterranean ushered in the Pax Romana, this was more of an ideal than

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a reality. Peace, according to Caesar Augustus, meant that foreigners were no longer able to threaten Rome.95 But peace was self-serving. When the Romans embarked on their imperial mission, their contact with foreigners brought either submission to their reign or annihilation as we have already noticed in Tacitus’s Agricola. I do admit that it certainly was a Roman policy to offer clemency and accept the surrender of conquered people. Many foreign nations did positively receive the Romans. Polybius notices that during Rome’s negotiation with the Macedonians, “it was not the Roman way to utterly destroy those with whom they had been at open war.”96 Livy remarks that this extension of mercy stems from their early tradition of “sparing conquered peoples.”97 But sparing people required that the conquered foreigners gave Rome an unconditional surrender,98 which included the imposition of taxes and tributes. These were the terms of peace. The Romans exacted a tribute from Carthage,99 Syracuse,100 Macedon,101 Sparta,102 Aetolians,103 Seleucids,104 and the Gauls.105 Often, the payments were for an indefinite period or decades. This money bankrolled the Roman war machine. Keith Hopkins, who explores the entire impact of conquest on the Roman economy, says it best in the following: Repeated success in war enabled the Romans to bring back to Italy huge quantities of booty in the form of treasure, money and slaves … Booty delivered to the state treasury was soon supplemented by provincial taxes which then gradually became the chief source of state revenue.106

The Roman war machine generated revenues through tributes, demanded slaves, and extracted resources from the regions they conquered. Many Roman elites became wealthy as a result. Here in John 11:48, the Jewish religious leaders fear that what has happened in other locations and places will now happen in Judea. Strikingly, as Mariane Meye Thompson identifies, there is some tragic irony of this verse given that decades later Roman occupation did result.107 What does this suggest? As I have earlier proposed, the conflict between the light and darkness emerges most clearly when interpreted in light of the Romans. Reading this verse in light of the prologue reveals more clearly that the Romans are agents of death and destruction, the antithesis of the light and life that the Logos brings to the world. The very act of having faith in Jesus becomes a political hazard to the Jewish elite, Jewish land, and Jewish people who believe in Jesus. Since the Logos has come into the world, this also means that an immediate reaction will emerge from the Romans.

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Roman Soldiers in John 18:3–12; 19:2, 23–32 John describes Judas taking a cohort of soldiers (σπεῖρα), a military official overseeing the soldiers (χιλίαρχος), and temple servants of the chief priest and Pharisees to the Garden of Gethsemane in order to arrest Jesus (18:3, 12). The presence of a cohort (σπεῖρα) has led to questions whether they are Jewish or Roman. Historically, it is not impossible to suppose that Roman soldiers would serve as mercenaries to supplement Jewish temple police. When King Herod was in conflict with Antigonus, the last Hasmonean king of Judea in 37 BCE, at his disposal were both Jewish and Roman soldiers. Josephus explains that Herod commanded 10 cohorts (σπεῖρα) of soldiers—five Roman, five Jewish, and a few mercenaries.108 Second, we must recall that Jesus was in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover festival (13:1). During large Jewish religious festivals, the Roman soldiers were always present. Josephus writes that the Romans “were armed and kept guard at the festivals, to prevent any sedition which the multitude thus gathered together might make.”109 They were even stationed in the Antonia fortress, which was next to the Jerusalem temple. Roman soldiers were positioned there to watch the people and ensure that no sedition emerged.110 It is thus possible that some Roman soldiers would participate in a reconnaissance mission to prevent a rebellion. Third, Josephus does not portray the Jewish people as skilled at war, which should raise doubts to the claim that those who came with Judas to arrest Jesus included a cohort of Jewish soldiers led by a Jewish military commander. In fact, Josephus describes the Jews who rebelled against the Romans during the Jewish war in the following manner: Now the Jews were unskillful in war, but were to fight with those who were skillful therein; they were footmen to fight with horsemen; they were in disorder, to fight those who were united together; they were poorly armed, to fight those who were completely so; they were to fight more by their rage than by sober counsel, and were exposed to soldiers that were exactly obedient; and did everything they were bidden upon the least intimation.111

Josephus does not believe that the Jews had a professional body of soldiers analogous to what the Romans had. Indeed, he needed to assemble a Jewish resistance movement to defend Galilee from the Roman invasion of 66–70 CE.  He organized a Jewish army “after the Roman manner and appointed a great many company commanders.”112 This mention of a military official (χιλίαρχος) who oversees cohorts of soldiers is the same term

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found in John 18:12. This suggests the improbability that the Jewish people would already have a standing cohort of soldiers with a military official ready to arrest Jesus. Undoubtedly, it is possible that one was haphazardly assembled to meet a pressing need, but even those who participated in the Jewish revolt against the Romans are portrayed as unskilled, disordered, not well armed, and unorganized. Furthermore, “cohort” (σπεῖρα) is never used in the New Testament to signify Jewish soldiers. This term within the Gospels describes Roman soldiers within the Praetorium (Matt 27:27; Mark 15:16). In Acts, it refers to the Roman centurion Cornelius (10:1), the military commander who arrested Paul in Jerusalem (21:31); and Julius the Roman centurion (27:1). Polybius explains that what the Romans call a “cohort” (σπείρας) is a large contingency of soldiers, which in Latin is manipulus.113 The term originally referred to a group of personal friends and acquaintances that accompanied a governor. Later it came to describe 500–600 Roman soldiers.114 Additionally, the term “officer” (χιλίαρχος), which describes the leader of the cohort in John 18:12, was also used in reference to the Romans. While not always, it primarily refers to Roman officers in Acts (21:31–37; 22:24–29; 23:10–22; 24:22) and imperial authorities in Revelation (6:15; 19:18). But there are exceptions, for both σπεῖρα and χιλίαρχος within Jewish literature σπεῖρα describes Jewish cohorts on several occasions.115 Likewise, χιλίαρχος also depicts the officers of King Herod (Mark 6:21) and tribunals of the king Agrippa and Bernice (Acts 25:23). The terms can be used to describe Jewish forces, but this is not the common way of using this language. Even more, it is possible that the Roman usage of these terms influenced all other military ideas, imagery, and language. This helps to explain why these terms are used for Jewish forces. Certainly, it is debatable if the cohort of soldiers (σπεῖρα) and military officials (χιλίαρχος) who appear in John 18:3, 12 were Roman or Jewish.116 Nonetheless, we know that no other gospel suggests that such a large army would be needed to arrest Jesus.117 There is another way of thinking about the issue—both historically and theologically. Historically, I believe that John provides an account of a few Roman auxiliary soldiers who wanted to make extra money. Roman soldiers tended to be loyal to their commanders and self-interests, not to their country. Lucan, who writes during the time of Emperor Nero, recounts that many of Julius Caesar’s soldiers committed themselves to any war even if it meant the “utter destruction be Rome” or one’s own family.118

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In fact, Lucan asks, “was it greed for greater rewards that made the soldier repudiate their causes and their leader, and again put up for sale the swords already stained with guilt?”119 Lucan recognizes how easy it was for soldiers to sell their skills for money. Not only soldiers, but military generals also had a propensity for corruption and concern for wealth instead of justice. Lucan eulogizes Curio, a Roman general who supported Julius Caesar, with remarks about his potential and disgrace: Rome never bore a citizen of such high promise, nor one to whom the constitution owed more while he trod the right path. But then the corruption of the age proved fatal to the State, when ambition and luxury and the formidable power of wealth swept away with their cross-current the unstable principles of Curio, and when he yielded to the booty of Gaul and Caesar’s gold, his change turned the scale of history. (Pharsalia, 4.815–820)

Definitely, the Augustinian reforms aimed to nationalize the army by promising a pension at retirement. Caesar Augustus attempted to make the soldiers loyal to him rather than loyal only to their commander. He promised them a fixed reward at the end of a sixteen-year service. But this promise was very expensive for the Roman government. Further, it did not quell potential mutinies from within the Roman ranks when their service was extended.120 In fact, when Augustus died, the army revolted and voiced their grievances. They complained of their extended service, the inadequacy of their eventual reward, corrupt centurions, and low level of pay.121 Tacitus affirms that the soldiers’ complaints were nothing new. He quotes one unnamed soldier who states the following: Suppose that a man survived this multitude of hazards: he was dragged once more to the ends of the earth to receive under the name of a “farm” some swampy morass or barren mountainside. In fact, the whole trade of war was comfortless and profitless. (Ann. 1.17)

Indeed, service in the Roman Army was not always pleasant, and many did not have control over the areas of their deployment. Evidence even exists that Roman soldiers revolted at the rumor that they were being deployed to distant regions.122 This may partially explain why recruiting practices became more difficult. Lawrence Keppie estimates that during the emperorships of Claudius and Nero, 48% of soldiers were Italian, and this percentage continued to decline thereafter.123 To make up for the loss

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of Italians, new recruits were the illegitimate sons of serving soldiers or veterans, men from local tribes, and non-citizens. Yet many continued to enroll in this profession given the reward for completing military service and the prize of citizenship for non-Romans.124 This leads us to determine that the heavily armed cohort of soldiers and military officials were more than likely Roman soldiers. They represented the interests of the Roman Empire but also were known for having concern over their own financial interests. Since Roman soldiers were already present in Judea, it is plausible that some would engage in squashing a potential uprising for money, even if the entire cohort did not participate. Indeed, John portrays the Roman cohort being led by Judas, who already within the gospel was described as someone who oversaw the money of the disciples and would embezzle the funds (John 12:6). This may help explain why Pilate was unaware of the situation (18:35) and why these soldiers seem to disappear from the narrative after Jesus is handed over to the Jewish High Priest Annas (18:12–14). These soldiers saw an opportunity, took advantage of the situation, and handed Jesus over to the Jewish religious leaders after the job was done. The aforementioned rationale provides a historical argument for Roman participation in Jesus’s arrest, especially since there is doubt that the Jewish people had a contingency of soldiers. I do not believe John is inventing this story. He is more than likely referring to Roman soldiers who were historically present. I also agree with Paul Anderson who finds that John may be providing key historical details reflective of a real memory.125 Were there exactly 500 soldiers present to arrest Jesus? Probably not. Samuel Millos agrees that “no se puede suponer que Juan hable aquí de todo el cuerpo de ejército, sino de un pequeño destacamento de tropas y un oficial.” 126 Craig Blomberg also suggests that the “nomenclature for divisions of the Roman army was frequently used even when the number of participating soldiers was far less” than the label.127 In other words, there were certainly enough to be present, but the full cohort would not be needed. Theologically, this story of Jesus’s arrest also points one back to the prologue. Recall that in John 1:5 the darkness was not able to “overcome” the light. This is no abstract metaphor but shapes how the readers must understand and interpret the activities of the people withing the gospel. Specifically, the significance of this verse emerges during Jesus’s arrest. The Romans and their allies attempt to bring an end to Jesus’s public ministry by arresting (συλλαμβάνω) and binding him (18:12). What we

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read in Jesus’s arrest (συλλαμβάνω) of 18:12 becomes a partial explanation of the darkness’s attempt to overcome (καταλαμβάνω) the light in 1:5. The prologue, however, already provided for the reader the realization that the darkness will not be victorious. We must note that these two passages are linked together with the similar verbal stem: λαμβάνω. John could have used another term for Jesus’s “arrest.” Matthew’s account describes Jesus’s arrest with the verb κρατέω four times (26:48, 50, 55, 57). Mark also uses this similar verb four times (14:44, 46, 49, 51). Neither Luke nor John use this verb to narrate Jesus’s arrest. But the mention that the Romans attempted to arrest (συλλαμβάνω) Jesus in 18:12 seems to coincidentally resonate with the darkness’s attempt to overcome (καταλαμβάνω) the light in 1:5. In addition, there may also be a further theological motivation for including these Roman soldiers. Visually, the cohort of several hundred Roman soldiers with their equipment would have illuminated the dark night (18:3). Notice how John describes these soldiers coming (ἔρχεται) with lanterns (φανῶν), torches, and weapons (18:3). They do not come for a diplomatic conversation. They were prepared for violence. In many ways, this arrival of armed Roman soldiers with lite torches visually echoes the prologue. These Romans come as the light in order to arrest, bind, and hand over Jesus to be executed. Their coming (18:3) is an imitation of the Logos’s coming within the prologue. In the prologue, the Logos comes to the world (ἐρχόμενον εἰς τὸν κόσμον) as the light (φῶς) in order to shine (φαίνει) in the darkness and upon all humanity (1:5, 9). These two arrivals imitate one another. The arrival (ἔρχεται) of these soldiers in 18:3 and the arrival (ἐρχόμενον) of the Logos in 1:9 mirror each other. One comes with lite torches for a violent seizure (18:3, 12). The Logos comes as the light to give life to humanity (1:5, 9). In other words, John portrays the Roman soldiers and their company in a manner antithetical to the arrival of the Logos. John also includes other appearances of Roman soldiers. All the Gospels affirm that Roman soldiers participated in the violent beating of Jesus’s body after his trial and arrest by the Jewish leaders. Matthew explains that when Jesus was led into the Praetorium, a cohort of Roman soldiers awaited him. They stripped, mocked, and spat on Jesus; they struck Jesus with reeds and placed a crown of thorns on his head before he was driven out to be crucified (27:27–31). Mark likewise recounts a similar story. He, too, identifies Roman soldiers participating in the mockery and beating of Jesus (15:16–20). Although Luke does not explicitly describe a Roman

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flogging, it is anticipated to occur (18:33; 23:16, 22). John, similarly, describes the engagement of Roman soldiers in the flogging and mockery of Jesus (19:1–2). They participate in a mock coronation. The soldiers place on Jesus’s head a twisted crown of thorns and a purple robe (v. 2). In an insulting fashion, they approach Jesus and say, “Hail, King of the Jews” and slap his face (v. 3). They dress Jesus in these clothes, which Jesus continues to wear when Pilate presents him before the Jewish people (v. 5). These Roman soldiers are portrayed as having control over Jesus’s body, clothing, and kingly authority. They crown, cloth, mock, and flog Jesus. Soldiers reemerge to crucify Jesus after Pilate dialogues with the Jewish people about the outcome of Jesus’s trial (19:16–18, 23). There were four soldiers at the cross who discuss Jesus’s clothes with one another. John describes the tunic itself as “seamless” and “woven into one piece” (v. 23). The soldiers eventually cast lots for his clothes because they do not want to tear the garment into four pieces. Jesus’s only possessions now become turned over to the Romans at the final moments of his life. In a sense, the Romans rob Jesus not only of his life but his possessions and dignity. They are, as the Briton leader Calgacus suggests, “robbers of the world.”128 Indeed, the Romans provide no life or nourishment. Even while Jesus is still on the cross, the soldiers give him sour wine to quench his thirst (vv. 28–30). After Jesus’s death, the soldiers remerge to comply with a request to break the legs of the crucified and remove their bodies (19:31). They do so with the first two individuals crucified with Jesus (v. 32). But when they come to Jesus, they notice that he has already died (v. 33). Instead of breaking Jesus’s legs, they decide to pierce his side with a spear, which leads to blood and water flowing out (v. 34). The soldiers disappear from the narrative after ensuring Jesus’s death. They do not recognize that the one they crucified is the Logos. In their minds, they did their job and rightfully executed Jesus. They move on and presume they have conquered a Jewish criminal. How are the Romans portrayed through the stories of these soldiers? Warren Carter identifies these soldiers as agents of the ruling elite who primarily accomplish the elite’s will and purpose.129 Indeed, Jorge Pixley also notes that John portrays the Romans responsible for the arrest of Jesus and come with great force because they expected a rebellion.130 The soldiers certainly do the bidding of Pilate and the Jewish elite in their participation of Jesus’s arrest and death. They emerge as a military force that comes with power and authority over human life. This arrival is, however,

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not for the bringing of life. They arrest, bind, beat, and crucify Jesus— thus attempting to conquer the one true Logos of life and light. They rob a vulnerable man of his only possessions, and they mock anyone who presumes to be of kingly descent. These Roman soldiers do so because they are agents of death, destruction, and violence. The significance of 1:5 now becomes clear. The darkness is attempting to suffocate and overcome the Logos. Jesus’s body in the hands of a Roman war machine experiences nothing but the plundering of human dignity and extermination of life. They certainly kill Jesus, but as Carter also states, “the empire is unable to keep Jesus dead.”131 Pilate the Roman Governor in 18:28–19:38 Our final exploration of Roman representation concludes with an analysis of Pontius Pilate. He emerges for the trial and execution of Jesus in John 18:28–19:38. In total, scholars recognize that there are seven scenes where Pilate moves in and out of his residence in order to interact with Jesus or the Jewish religious authorities. I briefly review here each scene while discussing its implications and relation to the prologue. In the first scene, Pilate first appears when the religious leaders bring Jesus to his residence, known as the Praetorium (18:28–32). John certainly does not absolve the Jewish religious leaders from participating in the plot to eliminate Jesus’s life. They are, however, limited in their power while also dependent upon Rome for their political authority. It is important to recognize that these religious leaders are, as Carter puts it, “allies with Rome … dependents on Rome and subordinates of Rome.”132 Managing the empire was not easy; Rome depended upon these ruling elites. Cassius Dio admits that the Romans “[embrace] every variety of mankind in terms of both race and character” but also admits that they “can only be controlled with great difficulty.”133 In fact, Rome installed familiar faces—client kings and aristocrats, the local elite, and influential people to rule on their behalf.134 This familiar face always served the interest of Rome, not the people they were supposed to represent. Given Rome’s installment of Jewish religious leaders, they must be primarily understood as Roman allies.135 When Pilate meets these religious leaders, he asks, “What accusation do you bring against this man” (v. 29)? They respond by describing Jesus as a “doer of evil works” (v. 30). This accusation does not interest Pilate, and he discharges himself of any duty to criminally decide the outcome of the

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case (v. 31). Perhaps Pilate believed that this was solely a religious dispute and did not want to intervene. The religious leaders respond by saying that they are not able to execute Jesus (v. 31). This interests Pilate, and he summons Jesus for further questioning. In scene two, Pilate wants to know Jesus, his identity, and why he is being arrested (18:33–38a). The scene shifts to Pilate and Jesus within Pilate’s residence. Pilate immediately asks Jesus if he is “the king of the Jews?” (v. 33). But where did Pilate get this idea? Did he view Jesus as a possible seditionist given the celebration of the Jewish Passover festival? Did Pilate have prior communication with the religious leaders? Nothing thus far in the narrative would have prompted this suspicion. This question also seems to reflect Pilate’s concern with those who may challenge Roman power. Jesus, however, does not answer Pilate’s question. Instead, he responds with a question that attempts to uncover why Pilate would want to know about his kingly identity. Jesus asks, “Are you asking this for yourself, or did others speak to you about me?” (v. 34). Pilate also does not answer. In fact, neither Pilate nor Jesus responds to one another’s questions. Pilate nonetheless continues with further questioning. He asks what Jesus has done to deserve being handed over by his own Jewish people. Pilate reminds Jesus that he is not a Jew (v. 35). Definitely, Pilate is a Roman, and Jesus is arrested because the Jewish leaders set this trial in motion. But the readers, too, are becoming aware that this rejection and conflict was anticipated in the prologue, which anticipated the rejection of Jesus by his own people and a conflict between the light and darkness (1:5, 11). Jesus, nevertheless, affirms Pilate’s suspicion. He indeed has a kingdom but one “not of this world” (18:36). Jesus further explains that if his kingdom were of this world, his servants would not have allowed him to be arrested. In this claim Jesus also points to his heavenly origin, which for the readers would include the recognition that he is the divine Logos (1:1). Jesus thus distinguishes his rule and sphere of authority from the Roman Empire and its authority over all people. Pilate seems to understand that Jesus is a king and attempts to draw Jesus into this confession. Instead, Jesus equivocates and responds, “You say that I am a king” (18:37). Jesus continues: I was born (γεγέννημαι) for this reason, and I came (ἐλήλυθα) into the world (κόσμον) for this reason, to testify to the truth (μαρτυρήσω τῇ ἀληθείᾳ). Everyone who belongs to the truth (ἀληθείας) hears my voice. (v. 37)

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In Jesus’s response, he informs Pilate of his imperial mission that has an alternative kingdom. His statement draws the reader back to the prologue but with a clearer understanding of the prologue’s imperial significance. There, the divine Logos is also portrayed as the only begotten (μονογενὴς) son of the Father (1:18) who has come (ἐρχόμενον) into the world (εἰς τὸν κόσμον) (1:9) for the sole purpose of testifying the truth (ἀλήθεια) (1:14, 17). Notice how the prologue contains literary connections to Jesus’s statement before Pilate in v. 37. Jesus’s statement to Pilate echoes the prologue by also affirming that he was born and has come into the world in order to testify to the truth. What does this literary echo suggest? Primarily, that the entire time the prologue embedded a rough outline of an imperial mission that is fully developed and explained through Jesus’s dialogue with Pilate. Now, in light of Jesus’s dialogue with Pilate, the prologue must be read as a story of a coming king to a new environment that contains a hostile imperial authority. The Logos’s coming, however, is not one of violence or forced submission. If it were, Jesus would not be arrested and bound before Pilate. Indeed, Pilate, as the Roman governor, is the one representative who holds the power to destroy Jesus’s life—as the prologue also anticipates that the darkness would attempt to do in response to the presence of the Logos (1:5). Yet, Pilate does not respond to Jesus’s kingly assertions or divine claims. Maybe he did not understand its implications at first— but the reader of the gospel can catch these connections to the prologue. One would hope that Pilate would understand. Instead, Pilate ends the conversation by asking, “What is truth?” In scene three, Pilate returns to the religious leaders and states that Jesus is innocent of any crime that would merit death (18:38b-40). He even asks the religious leaders if he should release Jesus, “the king of the Jews” (v. 39). Does Pilate really believe this claim? Certainly not. He appears to be mocking the religious leaders. The religious leaders, however, respond to Pilate with the request to release the incarcerated criminal Barabbas (v. 40). In scene four, the focus is on interrogating and torturing Jesus (19:1–3). The passage literally states that “Pilate took Jesus and flogged him” (ἔλαβεν ὁ Πιλᾶτος τὸν Ἰησοῦν καὶ ἐμαστίγωσεν), although the context may also suggest that the Roman soldiers also participated. Why this flogging mid-trial? Jennifer Glancy provides insights to this episode by explaining how the Romans would employ flogging to extract truth from a person.136 In other words, this was Pilate’s attempt to force a confession through

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torture. Since Jesus underwent torture and did not confess to a crime, this presumes that Jesus was innocent. This also explains why Pilate was confident in Jesus’s innocence given that he firsthand participated in the torture. In scene five, Pilate brings out Jesus’s tortured body for all to see (19:4–7). Jesus’s tortured body is on full display and demonstrates that he indeed is innocent. The beaten body of Jesus engenders a response from the religious leaders. As if this flogging of an innocent man was not enough, they shout for Jesus to be crucified. But Pilate attempts to extricate himself from this responsibility and tells the Jewish leaders to crucify him because he has not found Jesus guilty of such a penalty (v. 6). Twice, Pilate claims Jesus as innocent (vv. 4, 6). In response, the Jewish leaders point to the Jewish law of capital punishment for anyone who claims to be a “Son of God” (v. 7). In the sixth scene, Pilate returns to his residence and further questions Jesus, asking him about his origins (19:8–11). News of Jesus’s identity as the “Son of God” catches Pilate’s interest and engenders fear. But fear of what? Jesus was already arrested, beaten, presumed to be innocent, and held no threat. Maybe Pilate thought he had made a mistake and initiated a conflict with the son of a divine ruler. The language of “Son of God” was widely known as a divine claim made by Roman emperors. Livy retells the story of Romulus’s ascension by noting that his soldiers hailed him as a “god, the son of a god, the king and father of the city of Rome.”137 The inscription describing Caesar Augustus’s restoration of the Artemis temple at Ephesus describes him as the “emperor son of a god.”138 Indeed, Carter explains that numerous emperors through the first century were called “Son of God,” a phrase suggesting “origin as well as divine legitimation or sanction for the exercise of ruling power.”139 Pilate wants to know where Jesus is from (v. 9). Is Jesus the son of a divine God of another realm? This would have been the best time for Jesus to further clarify his mission, but he gives no response. This silence triggers Pilate and leads him to reassert his authority “to release” and “to crucify” Jesus (v. 10). Pilate presumes to have power over life and death, over freedom and oppression. He makes this known to Jesus. Unquestionably, this assertion would not be out of the ordinary. Pilate was known for being culturally insensitive and enacting harsh measures against people who challenged his power. When Pilate was building an aqueduct with money taken from the temple treasury, he ordered his soldiers to beat any person who would protest his decision, which they surely

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did.140 He also had killed, imprisoned, and oppressed many Samaritans who were summoned by a Samaritan prophet to Mount Gerizim. The Samaritans issued a complaint to the governor of Syria and accused Pilate of murder.141 Indeed, Philo describes Pilate as “a man of a very inflexible disposition, and very merciless as well as very obstinate”142 How does Jesus respond to this Roman governor who was known for being harsh and offensive? Jesus retorts that Pilate has no authority unless it had been given to him (v. 11). In the final scene, Pilate now desires to release Jesus, but by this time it is already too late (19:12–16a). Pilate is now before the religious leaders and succumbs to the pressure to choose between allegiance to Caesar or allegiance to Jesus (v. 12). He sits in the judgment seat, known in Hebrew as Gabbatha, and presides over Jesus’s fate, pronouncing once more to the Jewish religious authorities Jesus’s identity as the “king” of the Jews (v. 14). Pilate’s statements on Jesus’s identity as “king” are both a subtle mockery of Jesus and flaunting of Pilate’s authority before the religious leaders, as Carter suggests.143 Pilate knows how Jesus is perceived by the Jewish religious authorities. He, however, cares less. The Jewish religious leaders have already affirmed that they have “no king but Caesar” (v. 15). This seems sufficient for Pilate, and he thus hands over Jesus to be crucified (v. 16). While Jesus is sent for crucifixion, knowledge of his kingly identity is again mentioned on the lips of Pilate. Previously, Pilate had asked Jesus twice if he was a king (18:35, 37) and mockingly repeated four times to the Jewish religious leaders that Jesus was indeed a king (18:39; 19:14–15, 19). After deciding to hand Jesus over to be crucified, he authorizes the writing of the inscription that Jesus is the “King of the Jews.” This inscription causes stir among the Jewish leaders. Pilate does not care how they react, though, and leaves the inscription as such in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, thus providing many people to know Jesus’s identity (19:20–22). But Pilate’s actions and claims are not reflective of a knowledge that would demand an allegiance to Jesus. Whether he knows specifically of Jesus’s divine identity is beside the point. What emerges most clearly is that despite Jesus’s identity, Pilate recognizes that he holds the power to crucify Jesus, a power over life and a power to bring death (19:10, 15–16). By crucifying Jesus, he publicly views him as a criminal of the state, regardless of his internal belief in his innocence. The act of crucifying Jesus, as Pixley affirms, suggests that Pilate viewed him as a politically subversive individual who “oponían al orden provincial.”144

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Who Is Pilate? In my final analysis, several aspects about the way Pilate is portrayed are worth highlighting. These aspects revolve around themes of indifference, injustice, and racial supremacy over foreigners. They are not mutually exclusive and do overlap. Before our assessment, I also want to acknowledge that Pilate is discussed in favorable manners outside of the gospel. For example, in the Acts of Pilate, his portrayal is more sympathetic to the Jewish people who wept for Jesus. He says to the religious leaders, “To me it seems that it is not the wish of all the people that this man should die” (4.5). Furthermore, Tertullian describes Pilate as “a Christian in his own convictions.”145 But there is also an unfavorable portrait of Pilate. The Latin Vulgate affirms that Pilate was an “unjust judge” (1 Pet 2:23). Josephus and Philo recount various episodes in which Pilate used Roman soldiers in plain clothes to put down revolts, looted the temple treasury for public projects, installed golden shields and images in the city of Jerusalem, and—as mentioned earlier—mercilessly killed Samaritans who followed a prophet.146 Philo even notes that Pilate feared that the Jewish people would complain to the emperor about his repressive actions, a fear also reflected in the gospel of John.147 My goal is not to arrive at the “historical Pilate,” however, but rather explore how he is represented within the gospel of John. Pilate emerges as a political Roman leader indifferent to the Jewish religious leaders and Jesus. This is noticeable in his dismissive and mocking attitude throughout the trial. At first, when Jesus is brought outside the Praetorium, Pilate attempts to dismiss Jesus and have nothing to do with him (18:31). Pressured to respond, he interrogates Jesus and comes to the realization that Jesus is making kingly claims (18:37). Still, Pilate does not care about Jesus’s identity and only views him as a bound individual with no power (19:10). Pilate does declare Jesus’s innocence before the Jewish religious leaders (18:38; 19:4, 6). This declaration of innocence, however, is only the result of putting Jesus through torture. Knowing of Jesus’s innocence, Pilate repeatedly introduces Jesus as the “king of the Jews” (18:39; 19:14–15, 19) which seems to mock both the religious leaders and Jesus. In this sense, both Jesus and the religious leaders are instruments for his amusement. They reflect what Philo describes as his “habit of insulting people.”148 Furthermore, Pilate refuses to comply with the Jewish request to change the inscription that he authorized to be placed above Jesus’s cross (19:22). Pilate only concerns himself on two

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occasions: first, when he becomes aware that Jesus is being accused of being a Son of God (19:7–8) and, second, when the Jewish religious leaders implicitly threaten to declare him “no friend of Caesar” (19:12–13). His concern, however, is not about justice or coming to faith in Jesus. He is only concerned about his own political authority and power. He is more afraid of being removed as a governor than anything else. He cares less about Jewish sensibilities or Jesus’s sonship claims. In addition, Pilate does not concern himself with upholding justice by finding the true charges brought against Jesus. He asserts various times that Jesus is innocent (18:38; 19:4, 6) and indeed tries to release him (19:12). Pilate has the authority to set Jesus free, but still chooses to crucify him. For a moment, Pilate seems to have doubts over Jesus’s identity when the Jewish leaders accuse Jesus of claiming to be God’s son (19:7–8). This fear dissipates, though, upon his further questioning. In its place, Pilate reasserts his authority over Jesus, threatens his life, and eventually orders for his death. He can do so because he views Jesus as someone disposable in a political game between himself and the Jewish religious leaders. All Pilate seems nervous about is maintaining his power, even if it means that an innocent man must die. Pilate, who sits on the judgment seat, represents all that is corrupt with Rome, which has no sense of justice, only the ability to execute violence and death upon any foreigner who may impede its rule. It is injustice, bound with indifference, that leads Pilate in his failure to take seriously his role as a governor and clearly recognize Jesus’s identity. This further portrays Roman political representatives as people who care about nothing but maintaining their authority over foreign subjects at any cost. In this sense, the gospel portrays Pilate as an unjust and indifferent political ruler. Perhaps, in the experience of the readers, he too reflects all Romans who rule the world. Finally, Pilate affirms that he is not a Jew, and thus distinguishes himself from both the religious leaders and Jesus. In his opening dialogue with Jesus in the Praetorium, Pilate reminds Jesus of his foreign status and, in a manner that echoes the prologue, asserts that his own people had handed him over to him (1:11; 18:35). Perhaps Pilate is also making the point that Jesus’s kingly claims have no authority over him as a Roman. Or maybe this reassertion of his racial identity becomes another way of explaining to Jesus that his own religious leaders want him dead. The fact that Pilate can move between the inside and outside of the Praetorium reveals the privilege that Pilate has in his own racial identity. Only the Jewish religious leaders are limited and bound to certain spaces. As a Roman, Pilate has no

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boundaries and can enter any realm. Furthermore, Pilate is also racially defined as one who has power over all others. Those who are Jews in this scene are the powerless, the religious leaders, and Jesus himself. This power over Jesus’s life fully emerges in Pilate’s own participation in Jesus’s flogging and crucifixion. To be Roman, in this sense, is to have the power over the foreigners. It is a way of being Roman that recognizes oneself as having the power to determine who lives and who dies. It is a type of Roman identity that has the authority to execute, torture, and even mock without fear of repercussion. In this sense, Jesus’s contact with Pilate reflects a contact with all that is dehumanizing and death-affirming.

Empires and the Latino Experience How has John’s prologue shaped our racial imagination on Roman identity? Rereading the prologue as an anti-Roman story appears most clearly when read alongside the stories of Spaniard conquest in the Americas, Roman imperialism as portrayed in Greco-Roman literature, and the portrayal of the Romans within the gospel. I could perceive an anti-Roman element within the prologue when I thought about the Latin American experience of conquest and the arrival of the Logos to a new environment. Reading the prologue from a Latino perspective, as I hope, enables us to hear another story—an alternative colonial story, an anti-Roman story. Throughout the gospel, the Romans are the anti-Logos. They are portrayed as an imperial authority that will come and take away the land, exile native people, and bring death and violence to those who resist their rule. Roman soldiers are dispatched to inflict violence and subjugation to any person. Pilate emerges as a Roman agent indifferent to Jewish religious leaders; he cares little about justice and views himself as having the power of life and death over foreigners. The Logos’s journey to the world does not include a dehumanizing conquest and subjugation of people who refuse to acknowledge the Logos’s divine identity. The Logos as a divine person comes to inhabit a new land without bringing death, destruction, violence, or slavery. It is the story of the Logos coming to the world in such a way that does not engender fear or forced submission. Instead, it is the Logos who is met with hostility by the darkness that was present in the world. These Roman portrayals within the gospel help explain what the prologue enigmatically suggests when it describes the light shining in the darkness but the darkness unable to overcome it (1:5). The darkness

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emerges as the political ruling power and authority that responds to the Logos. The darkness indeed attempts to conquer, subject, dehumanize, and extinguish the light and life of the Logos. The prologue gives the readers hope, however, that the darkness will not prevail and that the arrival of the Logos will not and does not imitate the coming of the Romans.

Notes 1. David Carletta, “Requerimiento,” in Conflict in the Early Americas: An Encyclopedia of the Spanish Empire’s Aztec, Incan, and Mayan Conquests, ed. Rebecca Seaman (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2016), 319–321. 2. Patricia Seed, Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest of the New World, 1492-1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 69. 3. Seed, Ceremonies, 69. 4. Bartolomé de Las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, trans. Nigel Griffin (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), 56. 5. Seed, Ceremonies of Possession, 70. 6. Enrique Dussel, A History of the Church in Latin America: Colonialism to Liberation 1492-1979 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1981), 43. 7. Elsa Tamez, “The Bible and Five Hundred Years of Conquest,” in Voices from the Margin: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World, ed. R. S. Sugirtharajah (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2006), 6–7. 8. Andrew Erskine, Roman Imperialism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University, 2010), 5–6; Mary Beard, SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (New York: Liveright, 2015), 196. 9. Neville Morley, The Roman Empire: Roots of Imperialism (New York: Pluto Press, 2010), 17. 10. Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), 78. 11. Thomas Habinek, The Politics of Latin Literature: Writing, Identity, and Empire in Ancient Rome (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 1998), 3. 12. Habinek, Politics, 10–13. 13. Morley, Roman Empire, 8. 14. Said, Culture, 9–10; This view is also found in the unquestioned American assumption that its destiny is to rule and lead the world (55). Americans convince themselves that they are unlike former empires of France, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Holland, and Germany but instead rationalize their imperial power with the notion of “world responsibility” (285). 15. Said, Culture, 100. 16. Said, Culture, xi.

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17. Lawrence Clayton, David Lantigua, eds., Bartolomé de Las Casas and the Defense of Amerindian Rights: A Brief History with Documents (AL: University of Alabama Press, 2020), 20. 18. Dussel, History, 38. 19. Dussel, History, 38–44. 20. Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, trans. Cedric Belfrage (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1997), 20. 21. See David Thomas Orique, “The Life, Labor, and Legacy of Bartolomé de Las Casas,” Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice 26 (2014): 325–333. 22. Las Casas, Short Account, 127. 23. Manuel Mendez Alonzo, “Between Thomism and Roman Civil Law: The Eclectic Concept of Liberty of Bartolome De Las Casas and his Theoretical Defense of Native Americans during the Sixteenth Century,” Ars & Humanitas 11.2 (2017): 281–292; Robert Chao Romero, Brown Church: Five Centuries of Latina/o Social Justice, Theology, and Identity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2020), 53. 24. Las Casas, Short Account, 32. 25. Las Casas, Short Account, 70. 26. Las Casas, Short Account, 28. 27. Las Casas, Short Account, 23. 28. Las Casas, Short Account, 13. 29. Las Casas, Short Account, 126. 30. Las Casas, Short Account, 68. 31. Las Casas, Short Account, 88. 32. Las Casas, Short Account, 97. 33. Las Casas, Short Account, 98. 34. Las Casas, Short Account, 100. 35. Las Casas, Short Account, 103. 36. Las Casas, Short Account, 104. 37. Las Casas, Short Account, 110. 38. Las Casas, Short Account, 110. 39. Las Casas, Short Account, 97. 40. Las Casas, Short Account, 130. 41. Las Casas, Short Account, 25. 42. Galeano, Open Veins, 49. 43. Tacitus, Agr. 18.1. 44. Tacitus, Agr. 18.2. 45. Tacitus, Agr. 18.2–3. 46. Tacitus, Agr. 18.4. 47. Tacitus, Agr. 18.5–6.

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48. Tacitus, Agr. 19.1. 49. Tacitus, Agr. 19.4. 50. Tacitus, Agr. 20.1. 51. Tacitus, Agr. 20.3. 52. Tacitus, Agr. 19.1–4; 21.1–2. 53. Tacitus, Agr. 21.1. 54. Tacitus, Agr. 20.3–21.1–2. 55. Tacitus, Agr. 29.3. 56. Tacitus, Agr. 30.2. 57. Tacitus, Agr. 30.4–5. 58. Tacitus, Agr. 31.1. 59. Tacitus, Agr. 32.4. 60. John P.  V. D.  Balsdon, Romans and Aliens (London: Duckworth, 1979), 2. 61. Benjamin Isaac, The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2004), 305. 62. Vitruvius, De arch. 6.1.3–9. 63. Vitruvius, De arch. 6.1.10. 64. Greg Wolf notices how trade between long distances increased during the Roman Empire in “Imperialism, Empire and the Integration of the Roman Economy,” World Archaeology 23.3 (1992): 283–293. 65. Polybius, His. 1.2.7. 66. Polybius, His. 6.52.1–10; 18.30.5–31.4; 32.9–13. 67. Virgil, Aen. 1.278–279. 68. Virgil, Aen. 6.850–855. 69. W. J. N. Rudd, “The Idea of Empire in the Aeneid,” Hermathena 134 (1983): 35–50 [esp. 37–41]. 70. David Quint, Epic and Empire: Politics and Generic Form from Virgil to Milton (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), 51–96 [esp. 55]. 71. Livy, His. 1.15.6–7. 72. Livy, His. 1.16.1–3. 73. Livy, His. 1.16.6–8. 74. Cicero, Cat. 2.29. 75. Minucius Felix, Oct. 6.2. 76. John Rich, “Fear, Greed, and Glory: The Causes of Roman War Making in the Middle Republic,” in Roman Imperialism: Readings and Sources, ed. Craige Champion (MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 46–65 [esp. 62]. 77. Livy, His. 7.29.7. 78. Cicero, Resp. 3.35. 79. Polybius, His. 1.10.5–11.5. 80. Polybius, His. 32.13.4–9.

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81. Tacitus, Hist. 1.88; Agr. 16.3. 82. William Harris, War and Imperialism in Republican Rome 327-70 B.C. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1986), 2. 83. Plautus, Epid. 1.2. 84. Polybius, His. 9.10. 85. William Harris, “On War and Greed in the Second Century BC,” in Roman Imperialism: Readings and Sources, ed. Craige Champion (MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 17–29 [esp. 26]; Harris, War, 54–104. 86. Erich Gruen, “Material Rewards and the Drive for Empire,” in Roman Imperialism: Readings and Sources, ed. Craige Champion (MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 30–46 [esp. 30]. 87. Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John (Philadelphia: Westminster: 1976), 47–48. 88. Craig Keener, John (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2003), 1:387. 89. Juan Mateos y Juan Barretto, El Evangelio de Juan: Análisis Lingüístico Y Comentario Exegético (Madrid: Ediciones Cristiandad, 1982), 59. 90. Peter Phillips, The Prologue of the Fourth Gospel: A Sequential Reading (New York: T&T Clark, 2006), 170. 91. Phillips, Prologue, 172. 92. Fernando Segovia, “The Gospel of John,” in A Postcolonial Commentary on the New Testament Writings, ed. Fernando Segovia and R. S. Sugirtharajah (New York: T & T Clark, 2009), 158. 93. Segovia, “John,” 171. 94. 1QM 1:1–15; 3:1–11. 95. Res gest. divi Aug. 3. 96. Polybius, His. 18.37. 97. Livy, His. 33.12.7. 98. Livy, His. 1.38.1–4. 99. Polybius, His. 1.62.7–63.5; 1.88.8–12; 15.18.1–8; Livy, His. 22.33.5–7. 100. Polybius, His. 1.16.9–10. 101. Livy, His. 33.30.1–9; 45.18.7–8. 102. Livy, His. 34.35.1–11. 103. Polybius, His. 21.30.1–5, 43.1–20. 104. Livy, His. 38.38.2–14. 105. 1 Macc. 8:1–4. 106. Keith Hopkins, “Conquerors and Slaves: The Impact of Conquering an Empire on the Political Economy of Italy,” in Roman Imperialism: Readings and Sources, ed. Craige Champion (MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 113. 107. Marianne Meye Thompson, John (KY: Westminster, 2015), 253–254. 108. Josephus, Ant. 14.410. 109. Josephus, War. 2.224; Ant. 20.106.

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110. Josephus, War. 5.244. 111. Josephus, War. 3.15. 112. Josephus, War. 2.577. 113. Polybius, His. 11.23. 114. Lawrence Keppie, The Making of the Roman Army: From the Republic to Empire (London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984), 216. 115. Judith 14:11; 2 Macc 8:23; 12:20, 22. 116. Keener, John, 2:1078–1080; Thompson, John, 362. 117. Compare with the “crowd” mentioned in Matt 26:47; Mark 14:43; and Luke 22:47. 118. Lucan, Pharsalia, 1.380–385. 119. Lucan, Pharsalia, 5.245. 120. Beard, SPQR, 371–372. 121. Keppie, Making, 169–170. 122. Tacitus, Ann. 4.46. 123. Keppie, Making, 180. 124. Keppie, Making, 181–186. 125. Paul Anderson, “Jesus in Johannine Perspective: Inviting a Fourth Quest for Jesus,” Conspectus 32.1 (2021): 14–16. 126. Samuel Millos, Juan: Commentario Exegético Al Texto Greiego del Nuevo Testamento (Barcelona: Editorial Clie, 2016), 1588. 127. Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2001), 229. 128. Tacitus, Agr. 30.4. 129. Warren Carter, John and Empire: Initial Explorations (New York: T&T Clark, 2008), 68. 130. Jorge Pixley, “El Imperio en el Evangelio Según San Juan,” RIBLA 48 (2004): 87–94 [p. 88]. 131. Carter, John, 169. 132. Carter, John, 290. 133. Cassius Dio, Rom. his. 52.15. 134. Morley, Roman, 38. 135. See Josephus, Ant. 18:33–36. 136. Jennifer Glancy, “Torture: Flesh, Truth, and the Fourth Gospel,” Biblical Interpretation 13.2 (2005): 107–136 [esp. 108]. 137. Livy, His. 1.16. 138. CIL 3.6070. 139. Carter, John, 194. 140. Josephus, Ant. 18.62; War. 2.177. 141. Josephus, Ant. 18.85–89. 142. Philo, Legat. 1.301. 143. Carter, John, 305–311.

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144. Pixley, “Imperio,” 88. 145. Tertullian, Apol. 21.18. 146. Josephus, Ant. 18.55–62, 85–89; Philo, Legat. 1.299–305. 147. Compare John 19:8 with Philo Legat. 1.302. 148. Philo, Legat. 1.302.

References Alonzo, Manuel Mendez. “Between Thomism and Roman Civil Law: The Eclectic Concept of Liberty of Bartolome De Las Casas and his Theoretical Defense of Native Americans during the Sixteenth Century.” Ars & Humanitas 11.2 (2017): 281–292. Anderson, Paul. “Jesus in Johannine Perspective: Inviting a Fourth Quest for Jesus.” Conspectus 32.1 (2021): 7–41. Balsdon, John Percy Vyvian Dacre. Romans and Aliens. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC, 1979. Beard, Mary. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome. New York: Liveright, 2015. Blomberg, Craig. The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel: Issues & Commentary. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2001. Bultmann, Rudolf. The Gospel of John. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster: 1976. Carletta, David. “Requerimiento.” Pages 319–321  in Conflict in the Early Americas: An Encyclopedia of the Spanish Empire’s Aztec, Incan, and Mayan Conquests. Edited by Rebecca Seaman. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2016. Carter, Warren. John and Empire: Initial Explorations. NY: T&T Clark, 2008. Clayton, Lawrence and David Lantigua. Bartolomé de Las Casas and the Defense of Amerindian Rights: A Brief History with Documents. Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2020. Dussel, Enrique. A History of the Church in Latin America: Colonialism to Liberation 1492-1979. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1981. Erskine, Andrew. Roman Imperialism. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University, 2010. Galeano, Eduardo. Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. Translated by Cedric Belfrage. New  York: Monthly Review Press, 1997. Glancy, Jennifer. “Torture: Flesh, Truth, and the Fourth Gospel.” Biblical Interpretation 13.2 (2005): 107–136. Gruen, Erich. “Material Rewards and the Drive for Empire.” Pages 30–46  in Roman Imperialism: Readings and Sources. Edited by Craige Champion. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. Habinek, Thomas. The Politics of Latin Literature: Writing, Identity, and Empire in Ancient Rome. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 1998. Harris, William. War and Imperialism in Republican Rome 327-70 B.C. Oxford: Clarendon, 1986.

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———. “On War and Greed in the Second Century BC.” Pages 17–30 in Roman Imperialism: Readings and Sources. Edited by Craige Champion. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. Hopkins, Keith. “Conquerors and Slaves: The Impact of Conquering an Empire on the Political Economy of Italy.” Pages 108–128  in Roman Imperialism: Readings and Sources. Edited by Craige Champion. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. Isaac, Benjamin. Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004. Keener, Craig. The Gospel of John: A Commentary. Vols. 1–2. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003. Keppie, Lawrence. The Making of the Roman Army: From the Republic to Empire. London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984. Las Casas, Bartolomé. A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies. Translated by Nigel Griffin. New York: Penguin Books, 2004. Mateos, Juan y Juan Barreto. El Evangelio de Juan: Análisis Lingüístico Y Comentario Exegético. Madrid: Ediciones Cristiandad, 1982. Millos, Samuel. Juan: Comentario Exegético Al Texto Griego Del Nuevo Testamento. Barcelona: Editorial Clie, 2016. Morley, Neville. The Roman Empire: Roots of Imperialism. New  York: Pluto Press, 2010. Orique, David Thomas. “The Life, Labor, and Legacy of Bartolomé de Las Casas.” Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice 26 (2014): 325–333. Phillips, Peter. The Prologue of the Fourth Gospel: A Sequential Reading. New York: T&T Clark, 2006. Pixley, Jorge. “El Imperio en el Evangelio Según San Juan.” RIBLA 48 (2004): 87–94. Quint, David. Epic and Empire: Politics and Generic Form from Virgil to Milton. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993. Rich, John. “Fear, Greed, and Glory: The Causes of Roman War Making in the Middle Republic.” Pages 46–67 in Roman Imperialism: Readings and Sources. Edited by Craige Champion. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. Romero, Robert Chao. Brown Church: Five Centuries of Latina/o Social Justice, Theology, and Identity Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2020. Rudd, W.  J. N. “The Idea of Empire in the Aeneid.” Hermathena 134 (1983): 35–50. Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage Books, 1994. Seed, Patricia. Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest of the New World, 1492-1640. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Segovia, Fernando. “The Gospel of John.” Pages 156–193  in A Postcolonial Commentary on the New Testament Writings. Edited by Fernando Segovia and R. S. Sugirtharajah. New York: T & T Clark, 2009.

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Tamez, Elsa. “The Bible and the Five Hundred Years of Conquest.” Pages 1–11 in Voices from the Margin: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World. Edited by R. S. Sugirtharajah. Maryknoll: Orbis, 2006. Thompson, Marianne Meye. John. Louisville, KY: Westminster, 2015. Wolf, Greg. “Imperialism, Empire and the Integration of the Roman Economy.” World Archaeology 23.3 (1992): 283–293.

CHAPTER 8

Reflexiones y Conclusión

I remember growing up within a conservative Christian environment always hearing preachers warn the crowd of the “world” and its influences. The preacher would say in Spanish—no seas como el mundo (Do not be like the world) or eso es del mundo (That is of the world). Often, I would feel puzzled, not knowing whether such activities as playing video games or watching TV would lead me to stray from the faith and my Christian community. But this rhetoric also had another effect. It compelled the adherents to stay away from anyone who was not a Christian, including people who did not belong to our Pentecostal church. On most occasions, it had the tendency to sanction a negative view of people, including those within our church who did not attend each week or who would listen to nonChristian music. We would view one another with suspicion for acting or holding to values not in line with our interpretation of the Bible. Several times, especially in my early journey within the faith, I felt judged and lost friends for simply acting too much like the world, whatever that was. On several occasions, which I embarrassingly admit, I was the one who did the judging and removed people from my social circle. I even remember calling a high school friend who was not a Christian an “uncircumcised Philistine” because he was poking fun at my faith. I used racial rhetoric to classify and categorize my friend who had no relation or association with this group. He did not even know what I was talking about, but this rhetoric made sense to me. We remained friends for some time, but I slowly started to distance myself from him each year. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Galvan Estrada III, A Latino Reading of Race, Kinship, and the Empire, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20305-3_8

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Such mundo rhetoric, and all other racial rhetoric when used inappropriately, de-ethnicized those who were not part of my church or community. It compelled me to view all people not as members of their cultural and racial identity but as worldly people who could influence me in a negative manner. No longer were my neighbors Mexican, Black, Asian, or White, but they were now all lumped together into a category called el mundo—the world. This Johannine language used in my Spanish Pentecostal church taught me to view people, not as they are, but through the prism of my theological categories that stripped them of their own ethnoracial identity. In some ways, we were able to justify and hide our prejudicial colorism with theological language. That is, instead of dealing with the realities of racial justice, violence, dehumanization, and harmful representations, we turned a blind eye to the plight of oppressed racial groups because they were suffering—not for belonging to a particular racial group—but because they were el mundo. That is what we told ourselves. We convinced one another that the root of the problems in society simply had to do with people being of the world and not Christians. Where did this way of thinking about people come from? Why was there a concern to reimagine others and ignore their racial and cultural identity? While this study does not intend to prove that the racial rhetoric in my Spanish Pentecostal church was motivated and influenced by harmful readings of John’s gospel, I do find it ironic that the language used to reclassify and represent others was very Johannine. As the reader has already noticed from the previous chapters, this study of John’s prologue and the manner in which it shapes our racial imagination emerges from a contextualized Latino experience. These are my interpretations. I do not hide the fact that my own Latino context and heritage contribute to my own reading of the gospel and to my interpretation of its historical-­cultural context. This does not suppose that I simply import upon the Bible whatever I want it to say. On the contrary, I dialogue with the Bible and understand its meaning and message from my own life experience, the real flesh-and-blood me. This dialogue also includes exploring the racialized reality of the Greco-Roman world, its historical context, and the literary dynamics and language of the biblical text. My experiences play a role in my understanding of the evidence that I gather and what evidence I should emphasize more in the interpretation of the text’s environment. There is no need to pretend that our contextualized experience does not contribute to our biblical interpretations. While some try to hide this dynamic in the interpretive process, I welcome and dialogue with the Bible in my lived reality.

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Indeed, the time for ignoring how the gospel shapes our racial imagination is overdue. For too long, many Johannine scholars have failed to acknowledge the role of racial rhetoric and representation in John—often preferring a neutral and universalizing phrase like “Christians” or “believers” to identify the primary readers of the gospel or the Johannine community. The prologue, often considered the most theological, has another aspect rarely mentioned. As argued throughout this monograph, the prologue is also racialized rhetoric that contributes to the way the reader ought to reimagine and anticipate all the people groups who emerge later in the gospel. But how did the prologue’s racial rhetoric participate in shaping the reader’s imagination and color the way the various people groups in the narrative appear? By focusing on selected verses from the prologue, I could draw out the themes of kinship, race, and anticipated conflict with the Romans. Selected verses within the prologue were discussed and analyzed. But more specifically, I reviewed how the prologue anticipates the disruption of kinship relations that emerge later in the gospel (1:12–13). I also showed how the experience of rejection from Jesus’s own people anticipates the deconstructing of all racial privileges that emerge from a particular relation to an apical ancestor (vv. 11–13). Last, I reviewed how the prologue’s description of conflict between the light and darkness and portrayal of Jesus’s coming into the world also points to the eventual encounter with Roman authorities (vv. 4–5). While this study does not presume to discuss all aspects of the prologue related to these themes, my goal instead was to draw out the prologue’s racialized rhetoric and how it begins the gospel’s project in shaping the reader’s view of the other. In other words, talking about race in the gospel does not begin with the appearance of the first non-Jew within the story; it begins with the prologue’s racial rhetoric that sets the hermeneutical framework that helps one understand the representation and portrayals of various people groups who later emerge within the story. Another note, however, needs to be mentioned. By representing the “other” or people groups in general, one also describes oneself and reveals the baseline for understanding one’s identity. In this sense, the prologue’s description of the Logos is also a portrayal influenced in part by the gospel writer’s embedded racial ideology. This is how the Johannine writer understands the Logos’s identity and interprets Jesus’s historic presence and appearance. This point is not new. We always have recognized that the

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Gospels present a unifying but slightly different portrait of Jesus. Who, then, is the Logos according to the prologue’s racial representations? In the following section I reflect upon the prologue’s Christology.

A Latino Rereading of the Logos in the Prologue The Logos is a rejected family member. He is the divine God, the Son of God begotten of the Father, who is in perfect union and relation with God the Father (1:1, 18). In the eternal family, he was present before the creation of the world and participated in the world’s creation (vv. 1–3). Yet once this divine Logos takes a step toward his creation whom he imbued with life (v. 4), his creation turned against him and his radiant light of life (vv. 5, 9). They did not welcome their maker nor recognize that the divine creator had now come to reside with them on earth (vv. 10–11). The Logos came to his own casa but found no place to call home (v. 11). This family rejection, however, does not suppose that all people and families of the world would no longer receive a visitation from the Logos. Instead, the rejected one becomes the most receptive of all people. Not having a family of his own on earth, the Logos decides to create a new family and invite anyone who would believe in his name (v. 12). In this sense, the rejected one becomes the one who redefines what it means to belong. This new way of thinking about the family, however, begins by dissolving the reader’s primary understanding about one’s connection to an apical ancestor. The boundaries of kinship groups are expanded, specifically for those who receive the Logos (v. 13). This is not about creating a “fictive” or “spiritual” kinship with people but about a real kinship that emerges between the Logos and those who believe. It is a new understanding of the family that the gospel commences in the prologue and explores throughout. Most importantly, the gospel’s understanding of kinship emerges and is based on the kinship experiences of Jesus as anticipated from the prologue. The gospel expands the reader’s kinship imagination, including its borders and boundaries on the basis of its Christology. We thus cannot understand the Logos or Jesus’s identity as the Son of God apart from his experiences as a rejected family member who subverts the meaning of kinship. The Logos who finds no home among his own people also destabilizes all racial categories that brought boundaries and borders between

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humanity (vv. 11–13). These categories that brought privileges and esteem to certain groups no longer mean anything. By bonding himself to humanity in the incarnation (v. 14), he enters a conflict of race that has been constructed throughout the centuries. However, what we notice according to the prologue is the anticipation that his flesh will deconstruct the very walls we have constructed among each other. The prologue insists that no longer will people become defined in relation to their ancestors, heritage, or environment (v. 13). But this does not suppose that all categories have been done away with. Instead, a new descent and lineage are invoked (v. 13). It is a new possibility to define and racially categorize one another in terms of belonging or not belonging to the lineage of God. The prologue commences this way of thinking in light of the Logos’s experiences and presence on earth. A new way of belonging, categorizing, and viewing one another is shaped and defined in light of faith in the Logos and as a result of the Logos’s incarnation. We cannot ignore how the Logos disrupts the racial boundaries that champion lineage or association with an apical ancestor. That is, a disruption has commenced as a result of the incarnation. It is a disruption of all forms of racial supremacy—the hostile boundaries of race that have separated people from one another. Last, the Logos is a target of the Roman imperial authorities (v. 5). The prologue provides an alternative conquest narrative, telling the story of the arrival of the Logos to the world that can be read alongside imperial arrivals as manifested by Roman domination of the Mediterranean world (vv. 1–5, 9–11). The prologue portrays the Logos as the divine God who comes with divine authority to a worldly land in order to bring the benefits of life, racial inclusion, and revelation of the Father (vv. 1–18). This journey, arrival, and benefits that the divine Logos provides within the prologue is an alternative imperial rhetoric. Yet contrary to the arrival of the Romans, failing to acknowledge the Logos did not result in the death of indigenous people, slavery of women and children, or the theft of natural resources. Although reaction to the Logos includes a rejection and conflict with the darkness (vv. 5, 11), the Logos does not respond with violence or subjugation. Instead, the Logos responds with an invitation to join his family as a child of God and receive the revelation of God the Father (vv. 12, 18). The Logos, in sum, is the one who comes to provide light and life to humanity—not destruction or death to all who resist his rule.

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Conclusion This study has sought to provide another reading of the Johannine prologue. I do not attempt to suggest that all other readings of the prologue are incorrect or misguided. I desire, however, to highlight that the prologue is not solely a theological hymn on the incarnation of the Logos. It is also a kinship, racial, and political project that utilizes racial rhetoric and representation. What are the implications of this rhetoric? It is quite easy to highlight the negative aspects of representation, but I want to conclude on a positive note. For those who have lost their family, the prologue means so much more. No longer is the Logos solely a tribal God or simply concerned with a limited kinship group. Furthermore, the Logos also understands what it means to be rejected by one’s own family. Yet as the divine creator of all people, the boundaries of a family are expanded and reimagined. This means that we must have an ever-expanding notion of what it means to belong to each other and belong to God. The possibility to have a new family, one that welcomes, embraces, and forges bonds between people, is now possible through a communion with Jesus. Without a family, we are nothing, and we have no place to call home. Since we are all God’s children, this means that we are members of God’s family as sisters or brothers of one another. This is not an artificial, fictive family; it must be real. This also means that when we call one another “brother” or “sister,” hermano or hermana, this is a real family relationship. We view one another as a family because we are joined together into the family of God. To think of ourselves as any less than this is contrary to the kinship imagination of the gospel. For those who have been racially ostracized or rejected, the prologue as well can be a source of comfort and solace. The sense of one’s worth or dignity no longer depends on the pedigree of one’s racial identity or purity of one’s lineage. Immigrants and foreigners are part of the gospel story. Jesus in fact is not ashamed to be associated with those who are of mixed ancestry, mestizos and mulattos. Dehumanizing ideologies and devaluing rankings of people groups are abolished by the fleshly incarnation of the Logos. This means that esteem and self-worth are no longer dictated by social categories and ranking of racial groups. In place of these racial values and rankings that degrade human dignity, a new possibility emerges. It is a possibility that one has in redefining oneself and one’s people in light of a new lineage with God through Jesus. This new racial imagination

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becomes a destabilization of racial boundaries. Being born of God is not a spiritual experience apart from a racial reconfiguration of one’s identity. Being born of God means that a new racial lineage has emerged with its own set of privileges and benefits. It is another way to bring esteem and self-worth, especially to racial groups presumed inferior because of the dark complexion of their skin, inferiority of their lineage, or lack of citizenship documentation within national borders. For those who have been oppressed by imperial authorities, the prologue provides another divine ruler unlike all earthly representatives while also reminding one of the hazards in having faith. Truly, faith in Jesus indeed may place one at risk and in conflict with imperial powers, including those religious authorities who have aligned themselves with the empire. Even more, this also means that the Logos understands and sympathizes with the victimized and oppressed—for he too was oppressed and knows what it means to undergo a legal system that justifies cruelty. The Logos’s arrival in the world, in fact, revealed the identity of these imperial authorities. These authorities may profess to govern with justice or truth, but they are really anti-life and thus anti-Logos. They attempted to conquer and extinguish the life that he brings to all people but were unable. Thus, aligning ourselves against the empire, ruling elite, or any other agent that brings death and dehumanization to people is to align ourselves with the Logos.

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Index1

A Abraham, 7, 95, 96, 117, 125, 127, 128, 148, 152–155, 164 Aeschylus, 64–67, 76, 117 Agricola, 189, 194–197, 206 Alexander the Great, 67, 113, 117, 166, 171 Aristotle, 10, 23n54, 94, 135n14, 162, 172 B Baptist, John, 4, 5, 7, 84, 97–99, 102, 106n47, 146 Born again, 127 Born of God, 93–96, 101, 103, 113, 125, 133, 154, 235 Boundaries, 3, 13, 14, 16, 17, 38, 85, 101, 114, 121, 125, 127–130, 133, 148, 154, 164, 220, 232–235

Brothers, 92, 111, 115, 118, 119, 121–125, 127, 129–134, 138n78, 234 C Caesar, Julius, 73, 208, 209 Children, 2, 3, 21n23, 33, 60, 68, 71, 92–94, 96, 101, 113, 114, 117–119, 122, 125–130, 133, 134, 135n14, 138n89, 147, 148, 150–154, 187, 197, 199, 233, 234 Christians, 1, 4, 8–10, 18, 20n5, 46, 93, 95, 118, 132, 133, 145, 156, 188, 191, 192, 200, 218, 229–231 Church, 34, 35, 37–39, 42, 45, 46, 49, 112, 121, 124, 187, 191, 229, 230

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Galvan Estrada III, A Latino Reading of Race, Kinship, and the Empire, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20305-3

253

254 

INDEX

Cicero, 87, 104n10, 116, 117, 151, 199–201 Clement of Alexandria, 124 Community, 1–3, 7, 9, 33, 39–43, 46–49, 60, 63, 72, 73, 84, 91–93, 96, 99, 101–103, 112, 113, 115, 118, 119, 121, 129–133, 144–146, 156, 158, 159, 167–169, 229, 230 Conquest, 42, 67, 166, 175, 187–221, 233 D Darkness, 2, 10, 78, 83–88, 90, 91, 100–102, 105n17, 105n22, 194, 202–206, 210, 211, 213–215, 220, 221, 231, 233 Descendants, 14, 74, 95, 96, 113, 115, 117, 127, 128, 148–155, 160, 162, 172, 187 Diodorus, 98, 113, 117, 171, 172 Diogenes Laertius, 104n10 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 15, 85, 95, 150, 162 Disciples, 61, 90–93, 97–99, 105n17, 115, 119, 120, 122, 123, 125–133, 147, 157–159, 168, 170–172, 175, 210 E Egyptians, 62, 68–71, 77, 98, 163, 169, 174 Empire, 7, 75, 85–88, 102, 114, 143, 145, 188–190, 193, 197, 199–202, 204, 213, 220–221, 221n14, 235 Ethnicity, 11–17, 24n63, 44, 100 Euripides, 85, 95, 127, 162 Eusebius, 25n89, 124

F Faith, 37, 43, 44, 46, 62, 63, 90, 94, 96, 107n55, 112, 121, 122, 130, 131, 134, 159, 192, 202, 204–206, 219, 229, 233, 235 Family, 3, 10, 42, 60, 72–74, 84, 92–97, 103, 111–134, 146, 149, 150, 152–155, 158, 165, 194, 197, 208, 232–234 Father, 2, 10, 66, 91, 93, 94, 99, 101, 114, 117, 118, 120, 121, 126–131, 133, 134, 148–155, 159, 199, 215, 216, 232, 233 Foreigners, 3, 10, 11, 14–16, 68, 77, 88, 100, 101, 116, 118, 152, 155, 157, 160–162, 164–167, 174, 182n139, 198, 201, 202, 206, 218–220, 234 G Germans, 62, 71–74, 77, 162, 163, 193 God, 2–4, 6, 8, 9, 15, 34, 37, 41, 42, 44, 65, 68–74, 83, 84, 87, 88, 90, 91, 93–101, 103, 104n11, 106n49, 113, 114, 116, 118, 122, 125–134, 144, 147–150, 152–155, 160, 163, 172, 173, 175–177, 187, 188, 191–194, 197–202, 204, 216, 219, 232–234 Gospel, 1–6, 8, 9, 18, 19, 22n48, 25n89, 35, 37, 38, 61, 62, 78, 83–88, 90–94, 97–99, 101–103, 105n17, 113–115, 119, 120, 122–125, 128–133, 146–148, 150, 155–159, 164, 167–169, 171, 173, 175–177, 188, 190, 192, 194, 202–204, 208, 210, 215, 218–220, 230–232, 234

 INDEX 

Greeks, 4, 10, 11, 14–19, 23n54, 64–72, 75–77, 85, 91, 95, 102, 113, 115, 117, 132, 146, 161–163, 165–176, 199–201, 217 H Hermeneutics, 19, 31, 32, 34–42, 44–47, 49, 74, 145, 146 Herodotus, 15, 65–69, 71, 76, 77, 117, 165, 169, 173, 174 Homer, 149 Humanity, 6, 14, 16, 22n48, 77, 83, 85–91, 94, 103, 106n35, 116, 118, 143, 175, 176, 197, 198, 201, 202, 211, 233 I Identity, 1–3, 7, 9, 10, 13, 15–19, 31, 33, 40–42, 44–49, 49n2, 60–65, 67, 69–71, 74, 78, 84, 91, 92, 95–99, 101–103, 112–114, 119, 122, 123, 127, 128, 130–132, 143–146, 148–150, 152, 154–168, 174–177, 189, 196, 202–204, 214, 216–220, 230–232, 234, 235 Imagination, 1–3, 9–11, 19, 60–63, 74, 76–78, 84, 85, 96, 100, 102, 103, 115, 130, 155, 156, 171, 177, 188, 190, 220, 230–232, 234 Imperial, 3, 36, 45, 62, 67, 75, 77, 87, 88, 102, 114, 129, 188–191, 196–206, 208, 215, 220, 221n14, 233, 235 Indigenous, 15, 33, 72, 95, 143, 144, 161, 187–197, 233 Isocrates, 14, 66, 161

255

J Jesus, 2–4, 7–10, 18, 19, 22n48, 25n89, 36, 61, 83, 85–94, 96–99, 101–103, 105n17, 106n47, 107n55, 114, 115, 118–134, 138n78, 144, 147, 148, 151–160, 163, 164, 167–171, 173, 175–177, 190, 203–208, 210–218, 232, 234, 235 Jews, 2, 8, 14, 19, 22n48, 25n89, 61, 72, 83, 84, 91–93, 95, 101, 102, 117, 144, 146–148, 151–161, 163, 164, 168–176, 179n26, 203, 204, 207, 214, 215, 217, 219, 220 Johannine Community, 1, 5, 9, 18, 26n94, 99, 132, 167, 176, 231 John, 2, 4–6, 22n48, 78, 83–103, 113, 115, 118–122, 146–148, 151–159, 190, 202–213, 231 Josephus, 16, 95, 97, 117, 118, 150, 160, 162, 168, 169, 172, 173, 207, 218 Juvenal, 70, 71 K King, 65–67, 72, 123, 129, 160, 161, 169, 170, 172, 187, 191–194, 207, 208, 213–217 Kinship, 3, 13, 16–19, 22n48, 72, 75, 78, 84, 91–96, 100–102, 111–134, 159, 170, 231, 232, 234 L Latin American, 32–34, 36, 38, 47, 49, 60, 77, 143–145, 155, 167, 175, 176, 191, 220

256 

INDEX

Latino/a, 10, 12, 19, 31–33, 39–44, 46–49, 111–134, 144, 155–156, 188, 220, 230, 232–233 Latinx, 19, 31–34, 38–40, 42–49, 60, 111, 112, 118, 132, 144, 145, 156, 220–221 Liberation, 34–37, 39–41, 43 Life, 1, 2, 15, 16, 34, 36, 48, 65, 66, 68, 71, 85–88, 90, 94, 95, 101–103, 106n47, 112, 119, 122, 126, 127, 133, 138n89, 146, 148, 151, 153, 156, 167, 170, 171, 188, 193, 194, 199, 202, 204–206, 211–213, 215–217, 219–221, 230, 232, 233, 235 Light, 2, 3, 5, 13, 34, 36, 61, 76, 78, 83, 85–91, 94, 96, 97, 99, 100, 102, 103, 105n17, 114, 123, 125, 129, 146, 157, 169, 174–176, 195, 202–204, 206, 210, 211, 213–215, 220, 221, 231–234 Lineage, 17, 67, 72, 95, 96, 113, 114, 119, 126, 129, 133, 146, 149, 150, 152–155, 159–161, 163, 199, 233–235 Livy, 66, 67, 114, 123, 129, 163–165, 199, 200, 206, 216 Logos, 2, 3, 5–8, 83–91, 93, 94, 96, 99–103, 104n10, 113, 123, 146, 167, 171, 175, 176, 188, 193, 194, 202, 204–206, 211–215, 220, 221, 231–235 M Mary, 7, 119–122, 131 Mestizo, 42, 49, 143–146, 155–157, 167–168, 234 Mixed, 60, 72, 77, 144, 155–157, 160–163, 167, 168, 175, 234

Moses, 2–5, 84, 95, 97–99, 102, 116, 172, 173 Mother, 49, 64, 94, 115, 117–122, 127, 130, 133, 134, 149–151 Mundo, 229, 230 O Origen, 120 Ovid, 87, 165–167 P Persians, 62, 64–67, 76, 77, 117, 166, 169 Philo, 96, 116, 125, 126, 217, 218 Pilate, Pontius, 156, 210, 212–220 Plato, 10, 22–23n54, 69, 95, 161, 162, 165, 173, 174 Plutarch, 68, 123–125, 129, 166, 167, 173, 174 Polybius, 149, 165, 199, 201, 206, 208 Portrayal, 11, 19, 60–64, 66–69, 71, 72, 74–78, 83, 84, 87, 89, 96, 99, 119, 123–126, 129, 133, 146, 147, 155–157, 160–163, 167, 168, 171, 175, 176, 190, 205, 218, 220, 231 Power, 31, 36, 39, 43, 62, 70, 75, 86, 88, 96, 101–103, 114, 118, 121, 123, 150, 151, 166, 177, 188–190, 194, 199, 200, 204, 205, 209, 212–221, 221n14, 235 Prologue, 1–19, 78, 83–103, 111–134, 143–177, 187–221, 230–235 Q Quintilian, 85

 INDEX 

R Race, 1, 2, 10–18, 23n54, 23n56, 24n63, 48, 59–78, 83, 88, 89, 94, 96, 100, 103, 113, 115–117, 121, 129, 130, 133, 143–177, 198, 200, 213, 231, 233 Racial, 1–19, 48, 49, 59, 61–64, 66, 67, 72, 74–78, 83–85, 88, 90–97, 100–103, 112–115, 118, 125, 130–133, 143–171, 173, 175–177, 190, 196–202, 218–220, 229–235 Rejection, 1–3, 6, 10, 22n48, 32, 33, 35, 91–93, 96, 100–103, 106n35, 113, 123, 132, 133, 146, 152, 158, 170, 171, 194, 203, 214, 231–233 Representation, 2, 3, 9–11, 13, 19, 48, 59–78, 83, 84, 88–91, 97–100, 102, 103, 114, 155, 156, 169, 175, 187–221, 230–232, 234 Rhetoric, 1, 3–5, 9–11, 14, 17, 19, 48, 61, 62, 75, 77, 78, 84, 85, 94–97, 100, 102, 114, 145–148, 150–157, 161, 162, 164, 175, 176, 189, 190, 196–202, 229–231, 233, 234 Romans, 3, 4, 9–11, 19, 62, 64–77, 85–89, 91, 92, 95, 98, 100–103, 113, 116, 118, 126, 129–131, 149–151, 162, 164–166, 169, 171, 173–175, 177, 187–221, 231, 233 S Sallust, 164 Samaritans, 4, 18, 19, 62, 91, 92, 102, 106n47, 119, 146, 156–161, 163, 164, 167–168, 217, 218

257

Soldiers, 95, 117, 129, 172, 195, 197, 199, 207–213, 215, 216, 218, 220 Spaniards, 187–194, 200, 220 Spirit, 15, 35, 37–40, 42, 45, 48, 49, 90, 94, 113, 153, 158 Strabo, 68, 98, 173 T Tacitus, 71–74, 77, 98, 162, 163, 189, 194–197, 201, 206, 209 Temple, 65, 68, 73, 90, 116, 127, 148, 158, 160, 170, 173, 174, 195, 197, 200, 205, 207, 216, 218 Tertullian, 218 Trump, Donald, 46, 59–61, 64, 77 V Virgil, 114, 199, 200 Vitruvius, 10, 198 W War, 16, 69, 72, 73, 87, 117, 166, 187, 192, 195, 197, 199–202, 206–209, 213 Woman, 6, 7, 61, 73, 86, 94, 119, 120, 148, 156–160, 163, 168 World, 1–3, 6, 7, 11, 12, 14–16, 18, 19, 23n56, 31–49, 62, 78, 83, 84, 86–91, 100–102, 104n10, 104n11, 106n47, 114, 123–125, 144, 146, 147, 155, 161, 162, 164, 168–170, 174, 175, 177, 187, 189–191, 193, 194, 197–203, 205, 206, 211, 214, 215, 219, 220, 221n14, 229–233, 235