Interpretive Frameworks for Otherness and Identity in the Johannine Narrative

This chapter presents a brief critical survey of the representation of the minor characters in modern Johannine scholarship. Its concealed goal is to create an interpretive framework through which to explore the otherness of minor characters and the identity of Jesus. After examining literary and ideological approaches, it suggests that a combination of narrative criticism (as a method) and deconstructive postcolonial criticism (as a critical optic) is conducive to a new construction of the minor characters, one that aims at wrestling with the Johannine dualistic worldview as a literary and ideological production.