Authorship of the Gospel of John

Okay... if there is one thing that I can impart to the general public of the internet with this blog it is this: the “John” of the “Gospel of John” is John, son of Zebedee, brother of James who was the APOSTLE...This John is NOT to be confused with “John the Baptist,” the cousin of Jesus. 

This John, of our 4th canonical gospel, is known as “John the Evangelizer.” If you think about, it makes much more sense because John the Baptist was beheaded a little too quickly in relation to the span of Jesus’s life and resurrection to have had the time to write a book and lots of letters. 

Also, in an even more confusing irony, “Salome” is the name of both John the Evangelizer’s mother AND daughter of Herodias who demanded John the Baptist’s head. I would argue that this is as confusing as the egregious number of Marys and Peters in the Bible. Far too confusing. But, I hope, now, you will at least understand WHICH John we’re talking about.

And... of course, like the rest of the Bible, even THAT is not 100% certain. You see, the fourth Gospel, unlike the others, does not have a self-declared author. Instead, the author self-identifies as, “the one/disciple whom Jesus loved.” 

Over the centuries, the Church community has accepted John the Evangelizer/Apostle as the author, but there are other possibilities for authorship of the text, such as Lazarus, who is said to have been loved by Jesus in the scriptures. Another possibility is “John the Elder,” who was possibly a close companion of John the Evangelizer. I think, perhaps, it could have been written by John the Apostle and sent through rigorous edits and publishing by John the Elder. In any case, I think many people would agree that even if the Gospel was not written by the hand of John the Evangelizer, it still holds the soul of his story of Jesus's life.

The Socio-Historical Location of the Gospel of John

As with all scripture, the Gospel of John captures wonderful insights of the incarnate Jesus... but, equally important, the Gospel also captures insights into humanity at the time[s] and place that the gospel was written.

So far, no one has been able to agree on a particular date of origin for the Gospel of John. The process for dating John’s book is difficult because many scholars wanted to say that it was written in the end of the first century, but it has no knowledge or reference of the temple destruction in 70 AD. 

For those who may be unfamiliar, Israel, during Jesus’s time, was under colonized rule by the Romans. As you can imagine, the Jews HATED colonization and tried to revolt against the Romans... which resulted in this:

The Road of Victory...in Rome, Italy. 

 What a beautiful, detailed carving of the Jews, still enslaved... and the Romans taking their plunders.

[photo credit: my trip to Rome summer 2013]

But...Back to the Gospel, because of it’s lack of temple-talk, which is a key theme in Matthew and Luke, scholars today often believe that the Gospel of John must have been written sometime after 50 A.D., but before 70 A. D.

 Now, location is pretty interesting... There are a couple things going on within the gospel that poke at the curiosity of Bible nerds, such as myself:

1. the Conflicts with the Synagogue: It seems that John and his group of believers made themselves enemies of the Synagogues and were thrown out... developing after this persecution, the Gospel ends up with a bit of a defensive attitude, where “no fence sitters are welcome.” Thus, the Gospel’s has a very heavy focus on evangelism- which in many ways was recruiting soldiers to defend the text, the beliefs, and the physical community. 

2. the schism: it seems that, at some point, a division occurred in the group of John-followers. This divide is likely the result of the death of “the beloved one.” However, the group tries to stay together and the tight-knit, inner-circle that was the closest to John developed into the “Johannine school,” and they led their community in the ways of “Johannine Christianity.”

3. Judea and Jerusalem: Instead of being the climactic focal point of the whole story, Jerusalem is all over the Gospel of John. Jesus always seems to be traveling back and forth between Jerusalem and Judea...which makes sense because there seems to be good evidence that John, and/or his Johannine associate authors, were living in Judea- though it is possible they were forced to move at some point, due to persecution.

So…there we have it, I guess: it was John, in the kitchen with the cand--- I mean, it was John, plus or minus some friends, in Judea around 50-70 A. D.

The Literary Design of the Gospel of John

While there are very clear differences between John and the other Gospels (the Synoptics), the Gospel of John does seem have an awareness of at least Mark’s Gospel. As I mentioned in the last post, Matthew and Luke write about the temple destruction so it is likely that John’s Gospel was written in between these groups of the Synoptics. 

Alan Culpepper identifies John’s Gospel as an “ancient biography in dramatic form,” meaning, it was meant to be presented orally/theatrically...and this makes sense because:

1)The Gospel uses Dialogues instead of parables

2) The character of Jesus is more consistent: it’s an “enlightened” Jesus.... unlike the other gospels, who seem to be taken by surprise when Jesus is tried and crucified and discovered as THE holy son of God... Jesus in the Gospel of John seems to have a grasp throughout the entire story of his role as Messiah. 

3) The Gospel breaks what theater nerds call “the fourth wall,” meaning there is text that is written to/spoken directly to the readers/listeners.

Other important literary/theatrical tools of the Gospel include:

4) Misunderstanding: bonds the reader and the author together, as they journey with Jesus to correct the characters in the story who “just don’t get it.

5) Irony: Everyone loves irony...and the irony in John’s Gospel is done so well largely because, as mentioned above, it is done so with educated listeners. They already know the story. They already know Jesus is Messiah- so the irony is the ripest, most fulfilling sort possible. When Pilate shouts, “Behold your king,” he did so with the attempt to mock the beloved ones of Jesus and Jesus himself... but, of course, that “DUMMY” had no idea that Jesus would rise again as a conquerer of death and savior of the world. 

and

        6) Symbolism: the Gospel of John gets pretty attached to particular symbols, such as bread, water, light, dark, gate, door, path, way, etc...which leads us to the next post: Theology

Lastly, instead of "miracles," the Gospel of John points to SIGNS… in a way, it is almost a courtroom defense for the Messianic status of Jesus. The signs involve the amazement and conversion/recognition of those around Jesus…

Examples of signs are: the changing of water into wine at the wedding, healing the official's son, walking on water, and raising Lazarus from the dead.

In short, all of these facets of the literary construction of the Gospel of John really make sense when you look at the intended original audience of the Gospel: potential converts listening in on an oral reenactment. 

Themes and Theology in the Book of John

The Revealer

As mentioned before, it is pretty unique that Jesus in John’s Gospel is a self-aware Messiah throughout the entire story. This awareness earns Jesus the title of “revealer,” meaning he spends most of his life “revealing” that he is the Messiah to all of these other dumb-founded religious and political leaders and crowds and disciples who just haven’t “gotten it” yet.

The Word, theSon of God

In the Gospel of John, Jesus is connected to Christians, not through the line of David, but through the ENTIRE CREATION OF COSMOS.

What a statement.

but...What does this mean for us? 

The World is Apart from God

This gospel gives HUGE attention to dualism: light and dark, Jesus and the Devil, good and evil... 

So.. the world, in its path away from God, is being saved. For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son for OUR sakes. We were turning to evil, and Jesus saved us... but the most notable part is:

Jesus was not a superman. He did not battle. He was sacrificed.

Jesus is a sacrificial lamb.

As a child growing up in a standard Presbyterian church, I had NO idea what this meant. NO ONE I knew ever sacrificed a lamb for anything, and this became yet another meaningless mantra of our cultic prayers... until I was much older that I realized the importance of this parallel. 

The sacrificial lamb was a Jewish tradition for Passover, the holiday that celebrates the Israelites’ escape from Egypt under the leadership of Moses. In Moses’s time, the lamb was sacrificed and offered to God, and its blood was spread across the door to protect the first borns from the angel of death. 

Many scholars argue that the sacrifice of Jesus occurred at the SAME TIME as the sacrifice of the lamb for the holiday of Passover... but this time, instead of the lamb for the first born, it was Jesus for the ENTIRE WORLD.

That imagery was a beautiful and powerful statement for those who were living within the Jewish culture- and it still can be powerful for us today. 

If there is one thing to be said about John and his Gospel, it’s that he lived up to his name of “the Evangelizer” through this magnificent work.