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‘This is Truly the Savior of the World’: An Intersectional Empire-Critical Approach to John 4:1–42

In: Biblical Interpretation
Author:
Katie M. Brown Department of Religious Studies, College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Austin, TX, USA

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https://orcid.org/0009-0006-6145-5107
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Abstract

This article employs an intersectional empire-critical approach to analyze John 4:1–42, examining how imperial ideology shapes ethnic, gendered, cultural, and religious dynamics within the pericope. By considering the consequences of Roman imperialism and its impact on the relevant characters, it highlights the complex nature of Jesus’s dual role as both the victim of imperial oppression and as the perpetuator of his own imperializing ideology that proclaims him as the “Savior of the World.” Foregrounding the historical specificity of Roman Samaria—including the imperial cult at Sebaste, auxiliary military forces, and the destruction of the Gerizim temple—this study demonstrates that the Samaritan woman’s gender, ethnicity, and sexual history intersect to render her structurally necessary for the text’s imperializing mission. Her compounded marginality enables her to serve as the primary point of access for Samaria’s incorporation into Christ’s emerging dominion: she mediates the community’s inclusion while her own agency is instrumentally absorbed; her ethnic identity is dissolved even as her gendered identity remains marked. The narrative’s mission and harvest language (4:35–38) models a template of acquisition and expropriation that mirrors Roman imperial strategies and anticipates the text’s later utility in global missionary and colonial projects, showing how ostensibly “inclusive” rhetoric can simultaneously authorize hierarchical control.

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