Introduction to John

Introduction: Background Regarding the Gospel of John

(This background information is a synthesis of the scholarship presented in many sources, including the following: Brown, Introduction, pp. 362-376; Brown, The Community, pp. 22-24, 166-182; Bruce, pp. 1-12; Flanagan, pp. 101-104, 119-121; Perkins, pp. 942-950; Sloyan, pp. 8-28; Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, pp. 157-158; Ellis, pp. 1230-1231; and New American Bible, revised edition, New Testament, pp. 142-144.)

Why was the Gospel of John written?

The Gospel of John tells us why it was written:

• John wants us to believe and have life: At the end of chapter 20, John says that he could have written many more things about Jesus.  “But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31, NRSV).

Around AD 324, Eusebius, the bishop of Caesarea, tried to summarize everything he could find about the origins of the Gospels.  In his Ecclesial History, he quotes from a document written by an earlier bishop, Clement of Alexandria (AD 150-215), that we no longer have:

• John tells about events before John the Baptist was arrested that are not in the other Gospels: Clement said that John wrote his Gospel partly because the first 3 Gospels did not tell about the beginning of Jesus’s ministry but only covered the final year of Jesus’s ministry after John the Baptist was arrested (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book III, Chapter 24, pars. 7-8).  Eusebius reports: “John accordingly, in his Gospel, records the deeds of Christ which were performed before the Baptist was cast into prison, but the other three evangelists mention the events which happened after that time” (par. 12).

• John wrote a “spiritual gospel”: Eusebius writes: “But, last of all, John, perceiving that the external facts had been made plain in the Gospel, being urged by his friends, and inspired by the Spirit, composed a spiritual Gospel.  This is the account of Clement.” (Eusebius, Book VI, Chapter 14, pars. 6-7)

This suggests that John is going beyond the external, physical, material facts and exploring the meaning of what Jesus did  He is exploring on a deeper level than the other Gospels, not just providing strictly what Jesus said and did.  We might call this the “theological” Gospel, because it focuses on the symbolic nature of Jesus’s life and the metaphors that help us understand the true nature of Jesus.  We can see this in the ways John talks about Jesus being the light, the way, the truth, the life, the resurrection, the good shepherd, etc.

How important are metaphors like the light, the way, the truth, the life, etc. in understanding who Jesus is?

How do you think this Gospel might help you believe in Jesus and have life?

Who is the author?

We are not sure of the identity of the author of the Gospel of John.  None of the Gospel authors put their name on their Gospel.  The titles that say they are “according to Matthew,” “according to Mark,” etc., were added early on and are not part of the original documents.

There are two puzzles regarding the authorship of the Gospel of John:

• John’s Gospel never refers to “John,” but it does talk about “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” who scholars call the “Beloved Disciple.”  Was this Beloved Disciple the same as John the apostle, or someone else?  John the apostle and his brother James were the sons of Zebedee.  This Gospel never refers to James or John by name, and it only refers to the sons of Zebedee once: in an epilogue (chapter 21) not written by the author of the rest of the book.  Many scholars believe that the Beloved Disciple was the apostle John, the son of Zebedee.  A smaller number of scholars think it was Lazarus or Thomas.  A significant group of scholars think it was another disciple not named in the other Gospels: an eyewitness who was there through it all but was not one of the “Twelve” and only rose to prominence later.

The simplest conclusion is that “the one whom Jesus loved” is the apostle John, the son of Zebedee.  The Beloved Disciple appears in many places where we might expect John the apostle.  He reclines at Jesus’s side at the last Supper (13:21-26).  He is treated as a leader (20:1-2).  He is at the foot of the cross and took Mary into his house (19:25-27).  And he is the disciple who it is suggested would not be martyred as Peter was (21:17-24).  These are all things that fit John the Apostle.  So concluding that it was John the apostle requires the fewest additional assumptions, even though many scholars prefer the idea that it was an unknown eyewitness.

• Who wrote the Gospel of John?  Was it the eyewitness Beloved Disciple/John the apostle, or was it another person from John’s community drawing on John’s oral accounts?  Irenaeus, writing around AD 180, says: “John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia” (Irenaeus, par. 1).  Eusebius, reporting what Clement had written, says that “the apostle John . . . gave in his Gospel an account of the period which had been omitted by the earlier evangelists” (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book III, Chapter 24, par. 11).

The belief that John the apostle provided the Gospel of John has a long history, and it is likely that he was the source of the eyewitness testimony (unless the scholars who think the Beloved Disciple was another, anonymous disciple are right).  But that may not tell us who actually put pen to papyrus (or parchment).

Several other facts complicate the question of who wrote the Gospel of John:

• Chapter 21 of John’s Gospel is clearly an epilogue added by someone else.  Chapter 20 has a clear ending in verses 30-31.  Chapter 21 tells several stories, including the story of the conversation about whether Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved would be martyred.  It tells us that the story came from the beloved disciple, and “we know that his testimony is true” (21:24).  The use of the word “we” indicates that some or all of chapter 21 was added by a group.  Scholars talk a lot about the “Johannine community” – the community of which John was a central member in Ephesus.

• There was another John – John the “presbyter” or “elder” – who was also a highly respected member of the community at Ephesus.  Some scholars, going all the way back to the time of Eusebius, have thought that John the Elder wrote the Book of  Revelation; some also think he wrote, or at least compiled the final version of, the Gospel of John.

• All of the Gospels were developed through a process as they transitioned from oral stories to written accounts that compiled those stories.  None of the Gospels appeared from out of nowhere.  The stories were first told orally.  Then, someone wrote them down.  It appears that the 4 Gospels have material that was gathered from a variety of sources –  probably mostly oral sources, though there also may have been written documents that were partial Gospels or collections of sayings or stories.  So even if John the Apostle was the primary source for this material, it might have gone through stages, including possibly more than one written stage, before it arrived at the final version we have.

Many scholars today think that the Gospel of John was the work of several people in the Johannine community.  They think there was an original “John” who was an eyewitness; that there was an “evangelist” who first wrote a Gospel that built on what the original eyewitness reported; and that a redactor put it into its final form.  Some think that there was a version written in Aramaic before the first version in Greek, but others find no evidence for that.

We will call the author “John,” but whether it was John the apostle or an unnamed disciple whom Jesus loved doesn’t chang the outcome.  What matters is that at its root, it came from an eyewitness, and the result – the Gospel we have today – was inspired by God.

Where did the author of the Gospel of John get his material?

• The original source was an eyewitness.  The Gospel shows great familiarity with Palestinian geography (for example, Solomon’s portico in the Temple area; the pavement called Gabbatha where Pilate decided Jesus’s fate; that there were 2 towns called Bethany; the pool of Siloam, which was only rediscovered in 2005; the pool of Bethesda with its 5 porticos, rediscovered in the 1800s; etc.); the details of Jesus’s trial and crucifixion (that 4 soldiers gambled for Jesus’s robe; the blood and water that poured from his side; the weight of the myrrhs and aloes used to anoint his body; etc.), and many other details (that the boy with the loaves and fishes had barley loaves; that they had rowed 3 or 4 miles before Jesus came walking to them on the water; that Judas objected that the perfumed oil used to anoint Jesus’s feet could have been sold for 300 days’ wages; quotes of statements made by Thomas; etc.).

• This original eyewitness had a unique perspective, separate from the other Gospel authors.  Most of the material in the Gospel of John is different from what is in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) – not contradictory (except in one significant place), just different.  There is some overlap with Mark, but that could just relate to the fact that different eyewitnesses saw the same events.

• Some of the material in the Gospel of John appears to come from the reflection of the Johannine community and not necessarily all from the mouth of Jesus while he walked the Earth.  That would be consistent with the idea that John’s is a “spiritual gospel” that presents more of an interpretation or analysis of who Jesus is, not just what he did and said.  The Johannine community appears to have placed a strong emphasis on the role of the Holy Spirit (the Paraclete), so some of the material may not have come directly from Jesus but from later revelations the Johannine community received that they believed were revealed to them by Jesus through the Holy Spirit.  So, for example, in John 3:16-21, did Jesus say, “For God so loved the world that he sent his only son,” or is that an explanation by John?  The Greek of that time did not use quotation marks, so we don’t know whether it is a quote or an explanation.  But maybe it doesn’t matter, because either way, we believe it is part of the inspired Word of God.

To what extent does it matter to you whether the Gospel of John was written by John the apostle or another eyewitness?  To what extent does it matter to you whether the final version reflects a process of editing and refinement by other writers in the Christian community, or not?

Do these questions affect whether the result that we have today is the Word of God?  Explain.

When was the Gospel written?

Most scholars think the Gospel of John was written in the AD 90s, but a small case could be made that it was written before AD 70.

• John does not offer many textual clues for when it was written.  Scholars think Matthew was written after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in AD 70 in part because Matthew’s Gospel makes some statements that sound like the author knew that it had happened.  John does not give us that kind of clue.

• There is one spot where John uses a phrase that could indicate that it was written before AD 70.  John 5:2 says, “Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool....”  It would be odd for John to use the word “is” if he knew that the city had been destroyed and the pool was no longer there.  However, the Gospel could merely be relating the story as it would have been told orally and handed down for decades, so a single “is” is not much evidence to base a conclusion on.

• John presents what is called a “high Christology” – a high view of Jesus’s identity as God.  Many scholars believe that it took time for the understanding to develop that Jesus was not just the Messiah/Christ but God in the flesh.  That argues for a later date.

• The latest it could have been written was the early 100s.  For a while, some scholars argued that John’ Gospel wasn’t written until as late as 150 or later.  That idea was shot down when a fragment of papyrus was discovered in Egypt that contains a few verses from chapter 18 of John’s Gospel and that is considered to be dated between 100 and 150.  Since it would have taken some time for that copy of the Gospel to have reached Africa, John was probably published no later than the early 100s (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, p. 157; Bruce, pp. 6-7).

On a separate note, people sometimes wonder whether the Gospels might have been doctored or rewritten over the centuries by people or factions who had agendas of one kind or another – for example, after the time of Constantine when Christianity became the state religion.  The facts don’t support such a theory:

• We have a papyrus dating from the end of the 2nd century (the late 100s, only 100 years after the Gospel of John was probably written) that contains most of the first 14 chapters of John’s Gospel and parts of the rest.

• Another papyrus from the end of the 2nd century contains most of Luke and the first half of John.

• We also have a papyrus from the early 3rd century (100 years before Constantine made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire) that contains portions of all 4 Gospels and Acts of the Apostles (Bruce, pp. 6-7).

The Gospels we have today are not hugely different from what the Church had in the 2nd and early 3rd centuries.

Where was the Gospel written?

There is widespread agreement that the Gospel of John was written in Ephesus.  There is a large amount of evidence that John lived in Ephesus for much of his later life, with Jesus’s mother Mary.

What do we know about John’s audience and community?

Many scholars have written whole books presenting their theories about the Johannine community.  These scholars try to read between the lines of John’s Gospel and compare it to what we know or think we might know about what was going on the Church at that time, to extrapolate what we might conclude about John’s community.  The most important points are these:

• Many scholars think that John’s Gospel was written mainly for Jews and Jewish Christians, though not all agree.  Although it does not quote the Old Testament as frequently as other Gospels, John’s Gospel would be nearly unintelligible to people who lack an understanding of Jewish traditions and concepts.  For example, this is the Gospel with all the “I am” statements that echo God’s name for himself in the Old Testament.  Non-Jews would tend to miss the import of those statements.  John also focuses on Jesus’s attendance at Jewish feast days in Jerusalem, without bothering to explain them.

• John’s community appears to have faced intense opposition from Jews who did not believe in Jesus.  Those Jews kicked Jewish Christians out of the synagogues.  When John speaks negatively of “the Jews,” modern people tend to wonder why, since John was a Jew.  He is talking about the leaders of the non-Christian Jews who persecuted Christians.  It might be like a White person speaking negatively about “the Whites” who persecuted Black people in the South for 100 years after the Civil War.  He doesn’t mean all Jews, just those who rejected Jesus and mistreated Christians.

• Many scholars think John’s community may have included Samaritans who converted to Christianity.  They reach this conclusion because of John’s inclusion of the story of the Samaritan woman and the conversion of her town in John 4 and the lack of any negative references to Samaritans in his Gospel (Matthew and Luke each have one or more negative references to Samaritans).  The idea would be that John originally gathered converts in Palestine, Samaritan converts joined him, and they all eventually moved to Ephesus because of Jewish opposition in Palestine.  If indeed John’s community included Samaritans, that could have precipitated even more Jewish persecution since there was a longstanding hatred of Samaritans in the Jewish community.

• John’s community may have had a special emphasis on the Holy Spirit.  John’s Gospel has much more material on the Holy Spirit than the other Gospels do.

• John’s community may have had frequent theological disagreements with other Christians and may eventually have had a split inside their own community.  Scholars think the Johannine community was critical of what scholars call “crypto-Christians” – Jewish Christians who downplayed their Christian faith in order to remain in the synagogues.  They see hints in his Gospel that he may have had disagreements with Christians who did not share his high Christology or who did not place such a high emphasis on the ongoing role of the Holy Spirit.  And the New Testament letter 1 John, which might have been written as few as 10 years after the Gospel of John, indicates that the Johannine community eventually faced a serious internal disagreement that led to a painful split in which some Christians in the community left.

In what ways do you think the experiences and difficulties the early Church faced might have shaped what the Gospels writers decided to include or not bother to include in their Gospels?

Themes in the Gospel of John

The Gospel of John is marked by a series of 7 “signs” – wondrous deeds Jesus does that demonstrate his authority – beginning with his turning water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana (2:1-11).

The first chapter of John provides a first mention of many themes that will recur later in the Gospel.  These themes include:

• Jesus is the Son of God the Father.

• Jesus is one with the Father and existed before he was born as a human.

• Jesus reveals the Father.

• Some people do not know the Father because they refuse to accept Jesus.

• Jesus’s followers are children of God.

• Jesus brings life.

• Jesus brings light.

• Jesus brings the truth.

• Many people and events provide testify that Jesus is who he says he is.

John develops additional themes as the Gospel progresses, include these:

• There is a Third Person of the Triune God, the Spirit, who will be with Jesus’s followers when Jesus returns to heaven.

• Jesus is the Bread of Life.

• Jesus will be “lifted up” to bring people to himself.

• God loves the world and shows his love in Jesus’s sacrifice of himself.

• Jesus’s disciples are called to follow him, obey him, and love one another.

Which of these themes of John’s Gospel intrigue you the most, and why?

What do you hope to learn by studying John’s Gospel?  What questions do you hope to have answered as you study?

If you could ask John one question, what would you ask, and why?  How do you think he would respond?

Take a step back and consider this:

Atheists criticize belief in the Gospels because they have such different perspectives, which they call contradictions.  If God inspired them all, how could the authors have such different versions of the story?

The differences do not trouble me.  In fact, if the Gospels were all perfectly aligned, I would be more skeptical.  If every book told the story in exactly the same way, it would make me wonder if some person or group doctored or coordinated all the writings.  I can’t imagine that a genuine set of Scriptures could be any other way than our Scriptures are: different in tiny details because of the humanness of the human authors and how they obtained and crafted their material.  The only way the accounts could be entirely identical and still genuine is if God turned the original authors into robots taking dictation from him, and that would go directly against what it means to be a human made in the image of God with freedom, a unique personality, unique experiences, and unique ways of telling what we know to be the truth.

Not everyone has such confidence in God: to believe that he could work through humans to develop a collection of books and letters that are inspired by him and have sacred and eternal value even though they were written by human authors working with their various perspectives and limitations.  But that is why we say God is the author of the sacred Scriptures even as humans were the authors of the various books.  God, in his awesomeness, honored human freedom even as he guided the result.

What does the fact that God used such different people to produce the 4 Gospels tell you about God’s confidence in working through human beings to achieve his purposes?

How can that give you greater confidence that God can work through you?