(13 votes, average: 4.77 out of 5)
Loading...Now that I’ve summarized the major themes and emphases of the Gospel of John, I can turn to the historical questions of who wrote it, when, and why. In this case, the biggest mystery is Who?
To start with, the Gospel is anonymous – the author chose never to name himself. The first author to attribute it to John the son of Zebedee is Irenaeus (around 185 CE). Later readers found hints in the text to confirm this identification. The matter may seem a bit convoluted at first, but there is a clear logic to it. It was thought that the author was identifying himself in John 19:35 and John 21:20-24 as an eyewitness to the life of Jesus, one Gospel calls “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” And so the question was: which disciple would that be?
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Thank you, Dr Ehrman, that was fascinating. Apologies if you plan to cover this later, but can we also say that the author of John was a Jew, who was fluent in Greek and reasonably well educated in Greek culture, because of the philosophical references (eg. The Word/Logos) in the prologue?
I don’t think he was a Jew; his attack on “the Jews” (as if they were all Jesus’ enemies) and his references, when speaking to Jews, of “your law” suggest otherwise. He was definitely fluent in Greek; apart from the prologue I don’t see a lot of Greek philosohical influnence, but he would have been educated in Greek circles.
In John 5:28, 29 Jesus is quoted as saying, “Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.” This sounds like judgment based on your deeds, not your belief. Might this be called a case of editorial fatigue, that the author left something in that didn’t really go with his message? Does it tell us anything about his possible sources?
That’s the usual explanation, often called an “undigested fragment” of tradition. Hugo Mendez argues that even though it sounds apocalyptic, it is not. Can’t remembe rhis grounds, but it is about the only apocalyptic remnant in the Gospel.
“And this is the will of him who sent me,
that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me,
but raise it up ON THE LAST DAY,
For this is the will of my Father,
that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life,
and I will raise him up ON THE LAST DAY”
(John 6:39-40)
References to the LAST DAY (εσχατη ημερα) are also found in: John 6:54 , John 11:24 and John 12:48.
It “sounds” apocalyptic? It is just a remnant ?
Considering these passages I think is rather clear that for the author of John there will be
a LAST DAY of judgment and resurrection based either on faith (John 6:39-40) or deeds (John 5:28-29).
Dr. Ehrman, I have read that some scholars have suggested that the Gospel of John was written over time in stages. There are passages in the book that seem to be from an early eye witness and accurately describe locations and things from first century Judea during the life of Jesus. Those passages are from an early source. Then there are the “signs” passages that were added. Last you have the appendix (chapter 21) as you mentioned was added. Last the book was edited/completed in the final form we have today late in the first century or early second century. What are you thoughts on this?
I don’t think there’s any indicateion that there is direct eyewitness material in John. Knowing locations from first-century Judea doesn’t show the author was an eyewitness — it shows either that he knew the geography (liek a novelist who writes a novel that takes place in NYC is not necessarily an eyewitness of he events narrated, even if they put the Empire State Building in the right place) or is repeating traditions that started out from someone who knew the layout of the place. But yes, scholars have long argued that John is made up of different sources that were written in different periods, and that ch. 21 is a later add on. The source idea is currently under some attack just onw.
Hi Bart. I was wondering what your thoughts are on Matthew 8:24. On English translations, it says: “windstorm”, but the greek word is seismos which means shaking/quaking/commotion. Matthew uses same word in other places which is translated as earthquake. Do you think on 8:24, Matthew was implying “earthquake” or should we treat it as windstorm ? I am curious about this because if this is so, this is a good evidence for editorial fatigue(i.e Markan Priority). I don’t know greek, so I am not well competent in this at all.
You’re right, the word means “shaking” or “tremor” or “turbulance” and if it’s on land it’s an earthquake. Since it ways it was a “turbulance in or on the sea” I think it must mean “big storm” that was rockin’ the boat….
Bart, do you think that Papias made a mistake about conflating apostle Philips with Philip the evangelist ? One is mentioned in John 1:43 and another one in Acts 21:8-9. The reason I am asking is from Eusebius who quotes papias, it reads: “That Philip the apostle dwelt at Hierapolis with his daughters has been already stated. But it must be noted here that Papias, their contemporary, says that he heard a wonderful tale from the daughters of Philip.”. The only reason to think that Papias made a mistake is if we assume that Papias treated the word “apostle” as the actual apostle of Jesus. What if Papias used that word in the context of just being a follower of Jesus, in that case, he doesn’t seem to have made a mistake. What’s your thoughts on this ?
Since Philip the disciple (in John) is otherwise undescreibed, but Philip “the evangelist” is said to have daughters in Acts 21, and since “apostle” usually means “someone commissioned to spread the gospel” (that is apostle) and Papias’s story refers to his daughters, it is usually thought he is referring to the figure in Acts. Whether he know Acts or not is anyone’s guess.
Although the Gospels circulated as anonymous texts, one would think that someone knew their origin.
So, when Irenaeus around the year 180 says that the fourth gospel was written by John, one should perhaps think that someone reacted and said “Hey, that’s wrong! My grandfather told me his friend Jehoshaphat wrote that gospel!”.
Is the absence of such corrections an argument to be taken under consideration?
We don’t know if there were any corrections, since we have almost none of the writings and absolutely none of the oral conversations at the time. (In any event, it was about 90-100 years later, so it must have been more than the grandfather!)
Ancient styles of self-reference were different from ours. They were comfortable using third-person self-reference and/or anonymity.
We could argue that they would not have come up with the name “John” without good reason, since they would have known from Acts 4:13 that John was illiterate. Given that there was a strong tendency to conflate people of the same name (as you yourself have documented), it is worth looking for another John who could have written the gospel and/or been the BD. There are indications that the BD was a child because it would have been dangerous for men to be at the crucifixion. In the late 1980s I saw Israeli soldiers arrest Palestinians and noticed that only women approached to try to help the arrested. Men would be in greater danger if they tried.
Who better to write about Jesus at the end of the first century than one of the last surviving people who had actually met Jesus? Such a person would have been a child at the time of Jesus and old at the time of writing. Papias seems to be saying that John the elder was one such person. John the elder as BD?
Yup, who better?
In relation to Papias’s sources as recounted by Eusebius, we have:
“If, then, any one who had attended on the elders came,
I asked minutely after their sayings – what Andrew or Peter SAID,
or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas,
or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the Lord’s disciples,
and which things Aristion and the presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, SAY.”
So Papias had two ‘links’ to Jesus’s words:
Jesus → The Twelve (Philip, Thomas, etc.) → The elders → Those who attended the elders → Papias
Jesus → Aristion and the presbyter John → Papias
Interestingly, while the Twelve and the elders were already dead,
and “those who attended the elders” were arguably older than Papias,
Aristion and the presbyter John were still alive and spoke directly to him (he uses the present—”SAY”).
So we have this presbyter, bearing the name John, claiming he was a disciple of Jesus,
who was apparently immortal (see John 21:23-24).
A very good candidate for the author of John.
Sorry for the off topic question but I’m curious when you expect your new book on altruism to be released.
My guess is they’ll shoot for pre-Easter 2026. I’m hoping to have it sent to the editor for editing this week.
Given the very many historical problems with Luke-Acts, why cite it as a record of what the disciples were like?
Very few sources for history are without problems. If they describe historical events, we have to figure out what hte problems are and how to get behind them to historical information. Same with … daily news!
Sometimes people today learn to read and write somewhat later in life. Would that happen in the time of Jesus? And if they did, would it leave a historical record?
No, there were not adult educatoin programs back then. You learned literacy as a kid or not at all.
It seems very unlikely that the author of John knew about the synoptic gospels, simply because the Jesus portrayed there is so utterly different in terms of his content and patterns of speech.
In the synoptics, Jesus mostly speaks in short parables about the coming Kingdom, and says very little about himself. In John, mostly he talks about himself in extended monologues, and the Kingdom is barely mentioned.
Also striking is the differing teachings concerning “signs”. In Mark, no sign is to be given the current generation (Mark 8:12). In Matthew, this changes to no sign “except the sign of Jonah”. But in John, Jesus’ ministry is largely defined by a whole series of “signs”: miracles performed so that people will believe (John 2:11, 3:2, 4:54, 6:2, 6:14, 10:38).
The differences of the John gospel have led some scholars to believe that it was a theological development: that it did not reflect sayings of the actual historical Jesus, but rather the author was listening to the “spirit of truth” which he refers to in John 16:12-14. The early Christian writer Clement referred to John as a “spiritual gospel”.
Would you concur with that view, Bart?
That’s pretty much my view, yes.
This two part post by Dr. ehrman is indeed intriguing. One aspect of the gospel of John that almost no one ever mentions is its latent Antisemitism. Although some aspects of Antisemitism are apparent in the other gospels, this whole business of the trial of Jesus and Pontius Pilate’s quote: “I find no fault in him.” this being followed by the blood thirsty howls of the Jewish mob and its leadership: “Crucify him! his blood be upon us” is decisive. I can well remember the widely acclaimed (by conservative Christians) Mel Gibson directed movie The Passion of the Christ. The canned movie hows of the crowd are shocking. In my opinion, this gospel portrayal, amplified over the years, is a chief cause of the brutal Antisemitism that has plagued the Christian world to this day.
I would definitely call it Anti-Judaism, but I don’t thnk Anti-semitism is a term that makes sense in the ancient world, since Jews, for example in John, are opposed for holding the wrong religious views, not for having Jewish blood. The pogroms thorughout the Middle Ages were all about Jews needing to become Christian (religious views); the Holocause was all about Jews who were “Semites” that is, for Nazis, and inferior race. It didn’t matter if a person was actually a Roman Catholic: if their grandparents were Jewish, they were sent to the camps. That’s what I wold call “Anti-semitism” (not anti-Judaism)
I think the clue to the BD’s identification is John 21:23-24.
It seems that this passage was written AFTER the “disciple who is bearing witness” had finally died,
even though there was an expectation that he “was not to die.”
I believe the BD was some Christian leader in the early first century who claimed to be a direct ‘disciple’ of Jesus.
Supernaturally extended lives for people living in Jesus’s time was something early Christians believed in.
Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. IV.3) reproduced this passage from a letter by Quadratus to Emperor Hadrian (117-138):
“But the works of our Saviour were always present … those that were healed, and were raised from the dead… were alive for quite a while, so that some of them lived even to OUR DAY.”
But the deceiver finally died.
That was not a problem for him, but for those who believed his strange story.
They were the “WE” who wrote John 21 (“We know that his testimony is true”),while the BD wrote John 1-20 (or John 1:20-17?).
It seems that John didn’t use any of the synoptics as sources since, for example, in John’s gospel John the Baptist is publicly ministering at the same time Jesus is publicly ministering, whereas in the synoptics Jesus only starts ministering in public after John the Baptist is imprisoned. Yet the feeding of the five thousand, Peter denying Jesus, the disciples wondering which one of them would betray Jesus, the soldiers casting lots for Jesus garments, and the walking on water story, etc., are similar enough to the synoptics that maybe the author of John’s gospel had access to some of the synoptic material or their sources. Question 1: do you think 19:34-35 is a reference to the beloved disciple? Verses 19:25-27 say the beloved disciple witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion up close, suggesting the beloved disciple was Joseph of Arimathea (since in 19:38 he goes straight to Pilate to ask for the body). Of course, that would mean that as a secret disciple he was at the last supper and there were writings thought to be from him that were considered reliable enough to quote from. Question 2: Do, any serious scholars think Joseph of Arimathea was the beloved disciple?
1. Yes, 19:34-35 appear to be referring to the BD; 2. I don’t know of any who think that, since they are treated as two different people
What do you think of Richard Bauckham’s claim that the author of the Fourth Gospel was another disciple of Jesus named John, someone who at one time was a priest in the Temple?
I think it is completely implausible.
Hmm…BD is a fictious character created by the author of John. That’s a take I hadn’t considered before. That would make sense since the actual name of the disciple isn’t used.
It is interesting that scholars continue to speak of the Synoptics as if they were a group, and that if John knew “the Synoptics” then he wrote the Gospel of John after “them.”
Mark Matson (2001, “In Dialogue with Another Gospel?”) showed — in my opinion — that the Gospel of Luke-Acts was the most derivative, and had the Gospel of John (and MT and MK) before his eyes as he wrote.
John probably knew the Gospel of Mark, because he seems to take for granted — he obviously presumes — facts like the existence of the Church and the Sacraments, for example — without explicitly writing of them.
If Mark then possibly Matthew, though MT 11:27 sounds suspiciously as if it came from the Gospel of John.
But not Luke. Any similarities between these Gospels (e.g., meeting Jesus in Jerusalem after the Resurrection) is better explained by Luke copying John, says Matson, and that makes more sense to me.
Yes, I was on Mark Matson’s dissertation committee when he first wrote up that idea.
John refers to Jesus and his followers having been put out of the synagogue (9:22), and we know from Jewish sources that at a certain point Christians were no longer allowed in, but this was around the year 100. The rabbis then added to their prayers a “blessing on the heretics”, which was actually a curse on the heretics. This is told from the other side in Dr. Henry Abramson’s excellent series on Jewish history, including the debate among Jews afterward that maybe they had been too hasty in ejecting the Christians. Mind you, nobody was oppressing anybody at this point; Jews and Christians were both under the heel of a pagan Roman Empire. See https://henryabramson.com/2013/08/21/judaism-and-the-origins-of-christianity-his-155-lecture-1-4/
Yes, that was teh view I was trained on in grad school in teh 1980s. Today it is more widely thought that the Birkhat ha-minim (the “blessing”) was not a central factor for the Gospel of John, and that it is not possible to put a date on some kind of universal split between Judaism and Christianity. (often referred to in short hand as “the parting of the ways”)
Why was the gospels written in greek? Is it correct that it was the lingua franca of the empire only for the elite? If John wrote the gospel for his community wouldn’t he have written it in a language they could understand?
Yes, Greek was the lingua franca in the first century. There’s no indication that John or his community spoke any other language. (He was not living in Israel but in some major urban setting elsewhere in the empire).
Dear Bart,
What’s your view of the account found in the Muratorian Canon:
“The fourth Gospel is that of John, one of the disciples. When his fellow disciples and bishops entreated him, he said, “Fast with me now for three days, and let us recount to each other whatever may be revealed to each of us.” On the same night, it was revealed to Andrew, one of the apostles, that John should narrate all things in his own name as they called them to mind.”
This suggests the 4th gospel was composed by a committee, which would offer a solution to the question you raise concerning the BD both having written for the gospel and being referred to in the third person.
Not quite I’d say. It says that John composed the account based on what they all could remember together. The same, of course, is true of all the Gospels — an author writes what others have remembered.
Does the fact that John portrays “the Jews” as enemies of Christ, indicate that the author of John was from a community of Christians who saw Jewish people as their enemies? Does this give us any suggestions about the time or place it was written?
Yes, that’s usually the interpretation. Unfortunately it doesn’t help with time or place, other than it’s more likely after the mid first century in some major urban area (where there’d be both a number of Jews and Christians)
Dr. Ehrman: In response to my charge that the Gospel of John was a chief cause of the growth of Antisemitism throughout the ages, you said that the term Antisemitism had no meaning in antiquity. My point was that such statements I previously mentioned in John have been used by Christian leaders to justify persecution of Jews throughout the ages. As a student of history, I have read statements attributed to the Arch Bishop of Munich and The Arch Bishop of Vienna praising the Nazi final solution and quoting verses in John to justify this removal of Jews from Germany. (Some Christian leaders after the fact have claimed that they thought it would just be a removal not an extermination.) Still and all, they used John to justify the persecution.
Who can forget the Antisemitism of Father Coughlin in the 1930’s who also used bible verses to place blanket blame on Europe’s Jews and give Hitler a pass for his persecution.
I wonder if there hadn’t been any gospel of John and that only the passing references to the evil Jewish leadership in the synoptic gospels would the persecution have been so blatant–not only in the Nazi regime but throughout the ages.
I have always wondered: Is there any information found in John, but not contained in any of the Synoptics, that you think is potentially historically valid. To put it another way, when it comes to the Historical Jesus is John useful only insofar as it confirms what other, earlier sources say? Thank you!
There are probably a few things, such as that Jesus’ brothers explicitly did not believe in him during his life time (hinted at in Mark but not explicitly stated)
Dr. Ehrman, do you have any response to Lydia McGrew’s “Eye of the Beholder: The Gospel of John as Historical Reportage” (Deward 2021)? She rakes Licona, Evans, Keener and others over the fundamentalist coals, both because they lean toward your view, and more especially because she sees inconsistency between their liberal view of Johannine literary convention and a “high” view of gospel reliability the publicly profess.
Ah, sorry, I haven’t read it. But if she’s attacking Licona, Evans, and Keener for having my views, that’s would be a scream (and completely news to *them*!). Hey, they could sue her for libel!
But there’s really no arguing with fundamentalists….
Bart said: ” In the past decade the pendulum has swung yet again and it is widely argued he did depend on the Synoptics or at least knew them. I’m a dinosaur and don’t buy it. ”
Raymond Brown said (something to the effect) that it is implausible to think that the author(s) of John would have been so isolated as to have no knowledge of any of the synoptics. This seems a plausible objection to your view.
Also: your discussion entails a single author. I’ve read (from Brown and others) that there’s evidence of redaction within the Gospel. Do you deny this, as well?
I think Ray Brown — whom I admired as one of the greatest biblical scholars of his time — had a far too modern understanding of the circulation of ancient books and the formation of the canon. Luke says that there were “many” people who had written Gospels. Were all of them known to every one else? My view is always that we need evidence if we say that one source used another, or even have access to it, since the default position is necessarily that most people have not seen most things the have been written. We can show that Matthew used Mark, I think. But to show that a book that never quotes another, never has any significant verbatim agreements with it, tells mainly different stories, and never words the same stories in teh same way …. I think there needs to be some proof apart from the assumption that since we all know the four Gospels everyone in the year 90 must have as well.
Do you think the book of Acts alludes to the Gospel of John to demonstrate continuity between Jesus’ ministry and the early church? Parallels, such as Lazarus/Eutychus being raised from the dead and Jesus/Paul’s responses to being slapped during their trials by a temple guard/priest, suggest a connection. If so, could this imply that John was written before Acts?
What’s the basis for dating John to around 90? Is it possible that it was written earlier?
Could the author have been influenced by Philo of Alexandria, suggesting ties to Alexandria, Egypt?
Does John’s accurate depiction of geographical and architectural details suggests that its source was familiar with pre-70 Jerusalem?
Does John’s description of the BD as “known by the high priest” (John 18:15) imply a historical figure rather than a symbolic representation? On that note, perhaps the Beloved Disciple wasn’t one of Jesus’ twelve because he was from Jerusalem and not part of Jesus’ Galilean ministry. Alternatively, he might have been too young to be one of the 12. His presence at the crucifixion could indicate that, unlike the other disciples, he wasn’t seen as a threat to the Romans.
Lots of questions here, all of them debatable. Part of the debates is necessarily how much evidence is needed. If two accounts have the descreiption of a resurrection, does that mean one influenced the other? If two authors have a Logos theology connected with God, does that mean one influenced the other. If a novelist, say, writes a story that takes place in NYC and gets the location of important spots correctly, does that show the story is something that actually happened? Etc. Etc.
RE: “Another view is that the BD is a fictitious character used by the author to show what true discipleship is like (in contrast especially to Peter but also the others.)”
This is kind of my view, but with this twist; the writer is challenging all disciples, especially those who love and are beloved by God, to write the good news. They are to tell the stories, speak out about how Christ has changed their lives, miraculously fed and healed them, even how He has raised them from the dead.
Beyond this I see the statements in 19 and 21 as mere editorial third person. They read perfectly well this way. I suppose it is possible that Greek doesn’t permit this. Is so, just tell me. I’ve never seen a written answer on this from a good Greek scholar. Moreover scribes, amanuensists, did the actual script. Couldn’t these be their little notes? I got this idea from a young female doctoral student who recently published a book on how scribes wrote the NT, but I can’t find the book now.
If these statement were scribal additions, then there is no evidence for it; the verses are found in all our manuscripts. That means there’s a pretty high burden of proof for anyone who wants to argue they were not originally there. It’s certainly possible, but it has to have something foreful to make it likely.
I notice that the text that you refer to as differentiating between BD, said to have “written these things,” and the present writer (one of “we”), is from the 21st chapter, which you say is an addition. Might it be, then, that the bulk of the gospel actually was written by this BD, while it was one-of-we who wrote the Chapter 21 addition, perhaps because BD had died before he could finish it, leaving the task of completion to to one-of-we?
Do you mean all of ch. 21 is an addition? Yes, I think so too. Could the rest have been written by BD. Of course. But what evidence is there. The author never says he is the BD and speaks of him always in the 3rd person. My sense is that if there had not been a long standing tradition that John was the author and John was the BD, no one would ever suspect that simply by reading the book. (Just as no one would have any reason to think Matthew the tax collector wrote the Gospel of Matthew, where he (the tax collector) is mentioned in one passage that gives zero indication that the author is talking about himself, but on the contrary certainly reads as if he is not…)
I acknowledge that these parallels are not conclusive evidence, but do you ever find yourself developing a scholarly intuition or hunch about their significance? As you examine these overlaps, do you get the sense that the author demonstrates a firsthand familiarity with pre-destruction Jerusalem or a deep understanding of Philo of Alexandria’s work, potentially hinting at a connection to the Alexandrian school?
Intuitions and hunches are teh beginning point of a good deal of scholarship. In this case, no, I do not get that sense. (I’ve considered both at some length as you can imagine; but I don’t think a strong case can be made of either)
PROOF my mind is going:
20-25 years ago, i read a well regarded [probably deceased] author [English his native language] that wrote the author of Gospel of John, he says John disliked Judas Iscariot as the other gospels don’t portray Judas harshly. and no it is not you, this was before 2010 I read that.
beijing’s beago Ai:
One potential candidate for this author is Bart Ehrman, a well-regarded biblical scholar known for his critical analysis of the New Testament. Ehrman has written extensively on the Gospel of Judas and other apocryphal texts, and he often discusses the differences in the portrayal of Judas Iscariot across various gospels. In his works, Ehrman examines how different gospel writers present Judas, noting that while the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) portray Judas as a traitor, the Gospel of John adds a layer of theological significance to his betrayal, emphasizing Jesus’ sovereignty and the fulfillment of prophecy.