Studies in the Gospels (Part Nine)
Welcome to my 9th post on the canonical gospels. I’ve been comparing the four gospels, focusing on their time of composition, the author’s edits to their sources, and their view of Jesus. Now we move to the fourth and final canonical gospel, the Gospel of John. Most scholars believe that the Gospel of John was first published sometime between 90 and 100 CE. The gospel of John is unique in many ways. It contains accounts of Jesus’ miracles and teachings which are not found in the Synoptic tradition. In fact, there is very little overlap between the Gospel of John and the Synoptic Gospels. The gospel itself claims to be based on eyewitness testimony, although the author is never named in the book itself. Later church tradition attributed the book to John, the son of Zebedee, who is one of the twelve apostles named in the Synoptic tradition. The gospel of John follows the same basic storyline as the Synoptics. It introduces John the Baptist as the forerunner of Jesus, then describes Jesus’ ministry of miracles and teachings and concludes with his execution, resurrection, and post-resurrection appearances to his followers.
The New Testament contains five books which are all written in the “Johannine” style, and which present Johannine theology (a dualism of light vs. darkness, righteousness vs. wickedness, above vs. beneath, spirit vs. flesh):
1. The Gospel of John
2. The three epistles of John
3. The book of Revelation
There are enough differences in the Greek literary style of these documents, that most scholars believe they had different authors. For example, the book of Revelation is written in very primitive Greek, while the gospel and epistles are more polished. The similarities in theology and terms used are very strong. This may indicate that all the authors came from the same community within 1st century Christianity. According to early church tradition (2nd century), this community was centered in Ephesus, a city in present day Turkey. The book of Revelation mentions a network of seven key churches in present day Turkey near the close of the first century. It is possible these were all “Johannine” churches built around the teachings of the author of the fourth gospel. The author of the book of Revelation sent letters to each of these churches (see Revelation 2-3).
Introduction to the Gospel of John
As we begin, let’s look at some basic properties of the Gospel of John including its authorship, date of publication, intended audience, place of publication, sources, structure, occasion of writing and purpose of writing.
Authorship:
Early Patristic evidence attributes the authorship of the gospel to John, the son of Zebedee, one of Jesus inner circle of twelve disciples (Matthew 10:2). Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, wrote around 180 CE, “John the disciple of the Lord, who leaned back on his breast, published the Gospel while he was a resident at Ephesus in Asia” (Against Heresies, 3.1.2). That’s where we pick up the idea that John had moved from Jerusalem (where the book of Acts records that he was a leader in the church) to Ephesus at some point, maybe shortly before the Jewish War of 66-70. Clement of Alexandria, who lived around 200 CE is quoted by Eusebius as writing, “John, last of all…composed a spiritual gospel” (Eusebius, The Church History, 6.14.7). From that point forward, the church attributed the gospel to John the son of Zebedee, who was a Galilean fisherman. In the 19th century scholars began to question that assumption.
The internal evidence of authorship comes from John 21:24-25, where we read:
“This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true. But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (NRSV).
This disciple is presented as “the disciple whom Jesus
loved” at various points in the gospel (13:23, 19:26, 20:2, 21:7, 20). The disciple
is never named, has a prominent role in the gospel, and often appears with
Peter in key scenes in the story. The
wording in chapter 21, “we know that his testimony is true,” indicates there
were other people involved in the composition of the gospel besides the
“beloved disciple” (I will use the abbreviation BD for the beloved disciple
from this point on in the blog). Chapter
21 is also written in a slightly different Greek style from the rest of the
gospel. The original ending of the gospel may have been chapter 20:30-31, which says:
“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (ESV)
Chapter 21 may have been added later to satisfy curiosity about why the beloved disciple had died. The chapter addresses a rumor that the BD would not die (21:23). Reading between the lines here we can guess that the BD did die at some point, and the community that had formed around this leader wrote chapter 21 to explain his death. This theory is proposed by Raymond E. Brown in his Anchor Bible Commentary on John (Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John I-XII, Vol. 29, Anchor Bible, New York: Doubleday, 1966). Other scholars (e.g., Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006) believe that chapter 21 was part of the original document written by the BD while he was still alive. Bauckham notes that it functions as an epilogue, balancing out the prologue of chapter 1.
The BD seems to have been very familiar with Jerusalem since in the gospel he points out many geographical details about that city. Many of these details have been verified by archaeology over the past 100 years or so. He also knew the High Priest Caiaphas well enough to be invited into his court on the night of Jesus’ arrest, while the apostle Peter was excluded (John 18:15). This evidence points to someone other than John, the son of Zebedee, the Galilean fisherman. It’s unlikely that John, a native of Galilee in the north, would have been so familiar with Jerusalem and that he would have been a friend of the High Priest.
In addition, the book of Acts tells us that John was an uneducated, common man (Acts 4:13). How could someone like that have written a Gospel which uses polished Greek and is in fact a literary masterpiece? Perhaps John the son of Zebedee passed down an oral tradition that a well-educated Greek speaker later wrote down in the gospel.
There are many reasons to doubt that
this book was written by John the son of Zebedee. Some scholars (Ben
Witherington, What Have They Done with Jesus?, New York: Harper Collins, 2007, p. 147) have proposed
Lazarus as the BD given the internal evidence in gospel. Lazarus lived
just outside Jerusalem, and he is named in the gospel as “the one who Jesus
loved.” It is possible that Lazarus knew the High Priest in Jerusalem. Witherington notes that an early
fragment of Papias’ writings has been found which states that John the son of
Zebedee died as a martyr in the decade of the 30's just like his brother James (Ibid, p. 158). If this is true, it makes it unlikely that John the son of Zebedee was a source for the gospel. Papias was a church leader in present-day Turkey writing around the year 120
CE. He claims to have met the second
generation of followers of Jesus. In
other words, he personally knew the disciples of the first disciples. We don’t have any of Papias’ original writings,
but we have fragments that are quoted by later church fathers such as Eusebius. Another fragment from Papias mentions two different Johns: one is John the Apostle from Galilee and the other is called "John the Elder." Richard Bauckham believes that John the Elder is the BD, and the author of the Gospel (Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, p. 412-437).
Date of Publication: The gospel was first published sometime
between 90-100 CE. Raymond Brown
proposes that the oral tradition which forms the basis of the book might go
back to the period of 40-60 CE. He
thinks that the first edition of the gospel was written between 70-85 CE and
the final redaction (with chapter 21 written by the final editor) was published
in 100 CE. Many other scholars have signed on to the “several stages”
composition theory (for example, Louis J. Martyn, History and Theology in
the Fourth Gospel, Louisville:
Westminster John Knox Press, 2003). Other scholars like Richard Bauckham
and Andreas Kostenberger believe that the BD wrote the entire gospel as it is
including chapter 21. I will leave it to my readers to examine the various theories and come to your own conclusions.
Intended Audience: Jewish followers of Jesus as the Messiah. The book may have also been addressed to Jewish people who were not yet believers in Jesus as Messiah. The reference in John 9:22 to a believer in Jesus being excluded from the Jerusalem synagogue may hint at events taking place during the time in which the gospel was written. Scholars think that tensions between Jesus-following Jewish people and other Jews may have reached a boiling point in the years 80 to 90 CE. At this time Jewish believers in Jesus may have been excommunicated from the diaspora synagogues. (The diaspora refers to Jewish people who lived outside the area of Palestine. With the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple by the Romans in 70 CE, many Jewish people moved outside of Palestine). These tensions and excommunications may be echoed in Revelation 3:9 by a different author within the Johannine community of churches.
Place of Publication: Unknown – Ephesus and Syria have both been proposed as possible sites of origin.
Sources: based on an eyewitness testimony from a follower of Jesus (the BD) that may have been modified theologically through years of teaching and later insights. This tradition appears to be independent of the Synoptic gospels.
Structure: the gospel begins with an introduction (1:1-18), followed by a major unit called “The Book of Signs” (1:19-12:5), followed by a second major unit called “The Book of Glory” (13:1-20:31) which includes Jesus’ death and resurrection. The gospel concludes with an epilogue (21:1-25). Some scholars believe that chapters 11 and 12 are intended as a transition from the Book of Signs to the Book of Glory. This transition section showcases Jesus’ greatest sign: the raising of Lazarus from the dead, which foreshadows Jesus own resurrection.
Occasion of Writing: The occasion of writing seems to have been related to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple in 70 CE. This put the Jewish people into a severe crisis since the center of their religious life had been destroyed. The Temple, in Jewish thinking, was the dwelling place of God on earth. The Jewish people came there to offer sacrifices and prayers to God. Every year on the Day of Atonement the Jewish High Priest presented a special sacrifice at the Temple and as a result God forgave all the sins of the entire Jewish nation. Now this Temple and the entire sacrificial system was gone.
The crisis not only affected the Jewish people living in Judea and Galilee, it also deeply affected those in the diaspora. The author of the gospel presents Jesus as the replacement for the temple. Jesus is the new dwelling place of God, and the Jewish people can encounter God and receive forgiveness of their sins and eternal life by believing in Jesus as God’s Son. The author also shows that Jesus is the fulfillment of all the Jewish feasts which were celebrated at the temple. He points out that worship no longer needs to take place at any special location, like the temple in Jerusalem, but can now take place anywhere through the agency of the Holy Spirit and through the truth that Jesus revealed (John 4:23).
New Testament scholar Andreas Kostenberger writes,
“Life without the temple was at first hardly imaginable. Initial shock, however, gradually gave way to coping mechanisms that overcame the absence of a temple. It may be surmised that, likewise, after initial shock waned, Christian apologetic efforts toward Jews (such as John’s) emerged to address the Jews’ need to fill the void left by the Second Temple’s destruction. The fourth evangelist’s approach was to commend a permanent solution, namely, faith in Jesus the Messiah as the one who fulfilled the underlying symbolism not only of the temple, but of the entire Jewish festival calendar…In other words, John offered an alternative to the path chosen by mainstream (Pharisaic) Judaism, which eventually became rabbinic Judaism centered on the Mishnah and the Talmuds” (Andreas Kostenberger, A Theology of John’s Gospel and Letters, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009, p.65).
Purpose of Writing: The purpose of writing the gospel was to demonstrate that Jesus is the Messiah and Son of God (20:30-31).
In my next post I will look deeper into the unique content of the gospel of John.
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