At the end of John it says the information contained are the teachings of “the disciple Jesus loved” and “we believe that his testimony is true”. Does that indicate someone else gathered John’s teachings together and created the Gospel of John? It’s just if that were true it would really explain to me the huge number of times the gospel boasts about how John was ‘THE’ disciple Jesus loved. Even when Jesus’ mother is standing there it says – here comes Jesus’ mum and the disciple he actually loved (I’m paraphrasing.) It over the top. But if the book was produced by students of his that adored him, then it would make sense. Or is that ending just something to do with how scribes end a book they’ve taken in dictation?
GoJohn never identifies the beloved disciple as being John. Folks believe him to be John because John is otherwise totally absent in the 4th gospel, but that doesn’t make it so. In truth, that gospel probably has no connection to John. And the last chapter is a late addition to the gospel.
Thanks Robert. Absolutely, it’s just the “we” believe “his” verse at the end threw the whole single author thing off. I’ll read up on the Johannine community thing. But absolutely, reading John compared to the others it sounds way more like fables. He had a point to make and made up a story to get that point across. They’re all just too neatly available experiences otherwise. I suppose people could claim that Jesus is a God and therefore could make all those co-incidental meetings happen so close together to illustrate his points and reflect his life and work … but … yeah ….
Thanks CEJ. I hadn’t heard about the last chapter being a late addition? That kind of messes everything up. So would that create a theory that the first chapters had one author (obviously with all the extra bits added and changed) but then the last chapter is a sort of scribe NOTE saying “we found this book, we think it’s by John the beloved, and we think it’s true”? That’s plausible. But throws the other theory out.
Mike: Thanks CEJ. I hadn’t heard about the last chapter being a late addition? That kind of messes everything up. So would that create a theory that the first chapters had one author (obviously with all the extra bits added and changed) but then the last chapter is a sort of scribe NOTE saying “we found this book, we think it’s by John the beloved, and we think it’s true”? That’s plausible. But throws the other theory out.
Reply: I’m unsure whether it is generally held that Chapter 21’s Greek is distinct enough to be clearly from a redactor’s hand though I’ve seen that argued.
GoJohn is usually dated to the 90’s. That’s rather late for someone who walked with Jesus to have written it. And Acts 4:13 claims John was illiterate anyway. Further, Papias apparently claimed John died at the hands of his fellow Jews, and though Papias apparently didn’t say so, that likely places his death in Jerusalem before its fall in 70, like his brother James according to Acts. In short, John didn’t write any part of GoJohn.
The earliest, nearly complete manuscripts of GoJohn (late 2nd or early 3rd century) include John 21, but Tertullian seemed to have considered John 20 as the conclusion. Today, outside of apologists, I think it’s pretty much a given in critical circles that GoJohn first circulated without the 21st chapter.
Thanks again CEJ. Which John wrote it doesn’t bother me as much though. It’s whether we’re meant to believe that, whichever John it was, he apparently constantly went around telling everyone he was Jesus’ favourite. That’s really weird to me. And arrogant. And if that John was already dead, why would someome else later on spend so much effort telling us how much the disciple John was loved above everyone else? You could use the Gospel of John to back up a claim Jesus was gay. It get’s THAT cringy with the repetition and John regularly resting on Jesus’ “breast” or “bosom”.
So what are the possibilities for so much writing about John being loved in this Gospel? So far I have:
1. the author or authors were massive John fans and wanted people to know how important he was to Jesus.
2. it was written by disciple John who really thought he was important.
3. it was written by disciple John who had a mega crush on Jesus and was under the impression it was mutual.
4. it was written by someone else entirely simply to annoy all those constantly talking about how great Peter was.
5. it was written to take attention off Jesus’ affection for Mary Magdelene. which isn’t that wild a theory since John is the gospel where scribes regularly messed with the names Mary and Martha and who was where doing what with Jesus.
Any other theories as to why someone other than John would have written it with so much about how John was loved above everyone else? Its bugging me and I get the feeling that if I can get an answer that makes sense I’ll have a better handle on the purpose of the Gospel of John!
Thanks CEJ. You’ve no idea how good it is to hear someone else struggle with a topic!
Thanks Robert. That’s a new angle I hadn’t considered. Rather than it being someone promoting a real person they adored and wanted praise for – it’s an idealised (I’m in the UK so no “z”) concept of a disciple on purpose. That fits. Especially with the bits we were discussing before about too-good-to-be-true chance encounters. I don’t like how it affects the rest of my views on John. It’s like I’ve been struggling with a jigsaw then someone’s pointed out I’m using the wrong picture to work from. But it fits, dammit. Maybe I can find a way to prove your theory is impossible. Then I don’t have to change my views …
You’re welcome, Mike.
I have wrestled with the disciple whom Jesus loved in the past but not really anymore.
I agree with Robert. I believe him to be a fictional character.
I also believe he is tied in tradition to the also fictional young man in Jesus’ tomb in Mark 16.
But that is such a side excursion that I just didn’t want to get into it.
Ah, but that’s the thing. John is super picky. He counts the days and hours between each event, we get the units of everything, he skips features like last supper, transfiguration, exorcisms and even hearsay’s the baptism instead of describing it. Yet he repeats “THE disciple Jesus loved” over and over at regular intervals. I think there’s something in it that will open huge double doors in my grasp of the Gospel of John. I really, really, really dislike that gospel and have for some time. But when Bart opened my eyes to the epicness of Mark, it overhauled my entire process of dealing with the Gospels. And that’s AFTER already overhauling from reading Misquoting Jesus. So I’ve just got this nagging feeling that if I can get my head around why that concept was so important to get across – I’ll stop disliking the Gospel of John and actually start getting something out of it.
I suppose I should go back and reread Prof Chavez’ comments to remind myself if he mentioned it but the reason I am not sure about single Johannine authorship is textual. It’s a messy gospel. The textual seams are showing. It’s hard to see it composed by a single individual. And the presence of chapter 21 would indicate the presence of an editor at some point. You don’t have to posit a separate Johannine “school” to account for the state of the text but Raymond brown’s view does have explanatory power which is why it’s hung around so long. I do like Chavez’ idea of the nature of the “disciple whom Jesus loved” as an idealized figure though.
Any chance you could tell me what I should be searching for to get that information by “Prof Chavez”? I tried searching that name and got one result. A two page PDF of some summary notes about Mark. Remember when Google use to give you results instead of ads, images, sales products, and a bunch of alternate questions it thinks you should have asked instead?
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