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.