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.