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What is the external evidence for authorship? 

• Irenaeus (late second century) says that John the disciple, after the production of our other three gospels, wrote a gospel while in Ephesus.
  • Says that in his youth he was a student of Polycarp who was a student of John the apostle. 
  • Also claims that Papias was a student of John the apostle, while he was actually a student of John the Elder. 
  • So, can we trust Irenaeus? 
  • This also opens the possibility that the author was John the Elder instead of John the Apostle. 
• The Muratorian Canon attributes to John the son of Zebedee. 
• Reminder of why it was important to connect a Gospel to an apostle. 

What is the internal evidence?

• Educated
• Theological thinker
• There is an attack on the temple and references to followers of Jesus being kicked out of the synagogue (John 9:22; 12:42; 16:2). This was a later phenomenon in the development of Christianity, the end of the first century at the earliest. This brings the question of dating into the discussion. The dating of John might bring into question whether we could expect John the apostle to still be alive.
  • Though there is always the possibility that John’s teachings were compiled after his death. 
• The author is familiar with Palestine, Jewish traditions, and Scripture. 
• The author may have a presence in the narrative.
  • The Beloved Disciple (i.e., “the disciple whom Jesus loved”) 
  • John 19:26 and 21:24 seem to claim that at least certain aspects of Jesus’s Passion and resurrection, or perhaps the entire Gospel, are testimonies of the Beloved Disciple.
    • However, these verses also seem to read as if the author is relying on the testimony of the Beloved Disciple, not that the Beloved Disciple wrote the Gospel. 
    • This has led people to speculate either that the Gospel was written by someone relying on the teachings of John the apostle or the writing of John was edited by another into the final form we now possess.
      • It has been conclusively demonstrated that communities in the ancient world collected and edited the teachings of their founder. (This is actually why we have the Gospels in the first place.) 
      • This brings up the debate over the original Gospel audiences. 
    • We might can assume that the original audience both knew and respected the Beloved Disciple. 

Who is the Beloved Disciple? 

• Only appears in the second half of the Gospel; first at 13:23.
  • This is odd if the Beloved Disciple was there from the beginning. 
  • This reference comes after Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. 
  • Lazarus is the only one in the Gospel explicitly identified as one whom Jesus loved (John 11:3, 36). 
  • Was he at the last supper with Jesus because they were meeting at his home in Bethany? 
  • Did people believe he wouldn’t die because Jesus had already raised him? 
• If it is John son of Zebedee, it is interesting that the sons of Zebedee are only mentioned once (John 21:2).
  • You would expect them to take a bit more prominence in the story, maybe even to have a conversion story like the Synoptics. 
• Presence at the Last Supper
  • Does this mean he’s one of the Twelve?
    • Connection with Peter might suggest such
  • Were only the Twelve at the Last Supper?
    • It is interesting to note that the Synoptics mention the Twelve (Matt and Mark) or the apostles (Luke), but John has no specification about the disciples at the table. 
    • John’s meal also takes place before the Passover, unlike the Synoptics where it is the Passover meal. 
• Is mentioned in 21:7 as part of the group identified in 21:2.
  • Peter is ruled out because the Beloved Disciple speaks to him. 
  • Any of the others could be. 
• It has also been argued that the Beloved Disciple is simply a rhetorical device, not to be connected with a particular disciple, the author of the Gospel, or both. 

If John the disciple is the author, is this the type of Gospel we would expect? 

• The Beloved Disciple language to be throughout the whole Gospel. 
• Authorial self-identification as an eye-witness
• Stories unique to John
  • Jarius’s Daughter
  • Transfiguration  

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