Unnamed and Unarmed: Beyond Shame in Gendered and Racialized Readings of John 4

This paper offers a trauma-informed, feminist, and postcolonial rereading of John 4 that challenges moralizing interpretations of the Samaritan woman. Historically rendered anonymous and sexually suspect the Samaritan woman has often been read through gendered and racialized lenses that reinscribe shame and obscure structural vulnerability. Introducing the concept of unarmed trauma this study examines how anonymity ethnic othering and interpretive power expose the woman to theological dehumanization without narrative defense. Engaging trauma theory and post colonial hermeneutics the paper argues that shame based readings emerge not from the Johannine text itself but from later interpretive traditions shaped by patriarchal and ethnocentric assumptions. A close reading of John 4 demonstrates that Jesus offers no explicit moral condemnation and positions the encounter as one of revelation rather than correction. Reframing the well as a liminal site of risk and agency this paper reclaims the Samaritan woman as a theological witness whose voice emerges from vulnerability rather than moral failure.