Identity, Alterity, and the Gospel of John

Post-classical narratologies are beginning to appreciate the ways in which identity and alterity are central to narrative. The Gospel of John has long been considered an artistically crafted narrative, yet little scholarly attention has been given to the dialectical interplay of identity and alterity in the Gospel narrative, except as this dialectic forms part of a larger examination of postcolonial discourse in John. Using insights from Monika Fludernik’s “natural” narratology and Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, this article argues that issues of identity and alterity are pivotal to the Gospel of John, particularly in the Gospel’s rhetoric of belief and its anti-Jewish tenor and substance.