According to B. F. Westcott’s view of internal affairs, the writer of the fourth gospel is a Jew, an apostle, a Palestine, an eyewitness and John the Apostle himself. His knowledge over the geographical topology of the places and the various Jewish religious festivals and other ceremonial customs mentioned in the gospel, helped him decide the author’s ethnicity.
The Fourth Gospel or the Gospel according to John, narrates the events recounting the life and death of Jesus Christ. However, the actual identity of the author of the fourth or the time and place of the composition of the gospel is debatable. Apparently, it has been authored by St. John the Apostle, who has been referred to as “the beloved disciple of Jesus”. Although, the language used in the gospel suggests differently. The language and the developed theological views places the writer later than John’s actual timeline. Moreover, the final chapter of the gospel seems to be a later addition to the original manuscript. Given that the time of composition is uncertain, the place where it was composed also seems to be uncertain. It is opined by some scholars that it was written at Ephesus, in Asia Minor some time around 100 CE.
The fragment of the Rylands Library Papyrus P52 provides the evidence provides the earliest evidence of a manuscript of the fourth gospel. It’s written in Greek. However, since the language in which Jesus communicated was Aramaic, it may be possible that the ideas were heavily influenced by the Aramaic language and culture.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of manuscripts in ancient Jewish and Hebrew, that have been unearthed in the Judaean deserts, near the Dead Sea. The texts bear a close resemblance to the concepts and languages used in the gospel of John. The gospel of John centres upon the messages of hope and perseverance to follow in life. The War Scrolls, a part of the Dead Sea Scrolls, also centres upon the qualities of hope and perseverance in the defeat of evil and dualism. Both the texts portray similar belief and culture. The gospel of John ponders upon the dualistic antithesis, like in that of the Dead Sea Scrolls, to convey His teachings to His disciples and His followers.
John the Apostle was one of the closest disciples of Jesus, along with James and Peter, who went along with Jesus everywhere and sat beside him during the last supper and asked him to take care of his mother during crucifixion, Mary. When Mary Magdalene informed the disciple of the empty tomb, John was the first disciple to reach there. But the name- “the disciple whom Jesus loved” shows the overpowering love of Jesus Christ and the transformation that His love brought in his love.
The signs source are the hypothetical account of the happenings of the life of Jesus Christ, which are, according to some scholars, source of the gospel of John. One such signs source is that of the commentary by Rudolf Bultmann, published in 1941. According to his him, the writer of the Gospel of John depended on some earlier texts.
The sayings source is a hypothetical collection of the saying of Jesus Christ in writing. One such source is the Q source, which is supposed to have a collection of hypothetical quotes of Jesus Christ.
The earliest known fragment of any New Testament manuscript is the Ryland Papyrus P52. It is presently at display at the John Ryland University Library in Manchester, UK. It was translated by C. H. Roberts. He sent its photographs to three papyrologists in Europe, whom dated the manuscript from A.D. 100-150. The manuscript has been written on the codex and has seven lines from John inscribed on the front ( John 18: 31-33) and few verses (37-38) inscribed at the back. It is supposed that Apostle John authored this manuscript sometime around late first century. It was found in Egypt, near Ephesus.
Gnostics were the people who believed in personal spiritual knowledge over the orthodox teachings and authority of the church. They believed in the presence of a supreme hidden God and a malevolent lesser divine being, who created a flawed material universe. Many gnostic’s didn’t believe in the concepts of sin or repentance, but in enlightenment.
The Gnostics believed that the world was created out of spite by a vengeful God and the world was inherently evil. They didn’t believe that Jesus was born a human and went through human sufferings of this world. They did not uphold the values of an apostle and were not a reliable source of the teachings of Jesus. Also, they could not keep up with the evolving values of Christianity. So, they were called the heretics.
Irenaeus is, supposedly, the forth orthodox Christian to quote the fourth gospel.
He was a Greek bishop of Lugdunum, now Lyon. When met with the beliefs of the gnostics, who believed in knowing the mystery of the world, he defined the three pillars of orthodoxy, which were the scriptures, the traditions and the teachers.
The Diatessaron is a single juxtaposed version of the four gospels of the New Testament. It was composed by Tatian around A.D. 150. Around A.D. 400, it was replaced by the four separated individual versions of the Gospels.
It describes the Syriac literature, although no texts are extant now. Syriac literature once flourished with lots of hymns and poems, philosophy, grammar, medicine, etc, though none of them survives to this day.
Marcion of Sinope was the son of bishop of Sinope, who believed that God was a higher divine power than the good of Judaism. He was a follower of Paul the Apostle and considered him to be the only apostle of Jesus Christ. Just like Gnoists, he, too, believed that the God of the Old Testament was vengeful.
While Marcion was writing the gospel when John was dictating it carefully, he was rejected and expelled by John because he was teaching the opposite thing to John.
Papias was the bishop of Hierapolis, who was a hearer of John. His work, “Explanation of the sayings of the Lord” is an important source of the oral account of historical facts regarding early Christianity and the origin of the Gospels.
The Johannine authorship is comprised of The Gospel According to St. John, the three Epistles of John and the Revelation of St. John the divine. They have been authored around the 2nd century A.D. It revolves around the author’s identity, when and where they were composed. Although, John the Apostle is considered to be the author of all these works, there is still a place of speculation in this matter.
Montanists were the followers of the sect, Montanism, founded by Montanus. They believed in an apocalyptic end of the world, and laid great faith in expecting prophetic gifts and followed strict asceticism.
Clement of Alexandria called John’s gospel to be supplementing the synoptic gospels. According to him, the gospel of John enlightened the spirits of individuals.
The message from these lines is that there are so many numerous miracles done by Jesus that it is not possible to mention each and every one of them. Every second a new miracle is happening somewhere around the world, taking place of the latest one around. So as not to make his gospel another biography of the life of Jesus, John put forward only a few them so that we may believe in Jesus and follow his way.
The term “diaspora” refers to a scattered population that has been uprooted from its original geographical location and resettled in a new place.
The Jews were dispersed and exiled outside Israel from the gentiles during the Babylonian Exile.The mass exodus of Jewish population due to the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem in 70 A.D. led the Jews to scatter over the world.
Hellenism is defined as the adoption of cultures, art, thought, customs, etc., of ancient Greece.
In the Gospel of John, we find the author making Greek references about pagan philosophies and concepts that are easy to communicate with the gentile Greek audience.
John the Baptist was a prophet who came before Jesus, who came to fulfil a prophecy from the Book of Isaiah. Jesus was baptised by John and we find the humble nature of John when he admitted to Jesus that he was not worthy to even tie the laces of Jesus’ sea. Later, as the text proceeds, we learn the bravery of John, who doesn’t deter from his path of God even when met with problems. He came before Jesus to prepare the way for Him. He baptised with water, while Jesus baptised with the holy spirit.
John the Apostle was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus, along with his brother, James. He was the son of Zebedee and Salome. He was originally the disciple of John the Baptist, but he sent them to Jesus. The fourth gospel is supposedly authored by him. He was one of the three closest disciples of Jesus. Along with Peter and James, John is considered to be one of the strong pillars of the church.
The first four books the New Testament of the Bible are known as Gospels. The four gospels are those of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke are collectively known as Synoptic Gospels, since they portray many similar stories and identical sequence of series and often have similar vocabulary. The Fourth Gospel is the gospel of John, which is sternly different from the rest three Gospels in the Holy Bible. Although all the four gospels deal with the life and death of Jesus Christ for the sins of humanity, their way of expression and viewpoint differs relatively. The following may be characterised as the general differences between the synoptic gospel and the court gospel.
Despite all the differences present in the synoptic gospels and the fourth gospel, or the gospel of John, we find certain similarities in both the group. With similarities ranging from overlapping of certain events in the lifetime of Jesus, to certain stories said by Him during that time. But the most important similarity that overshadows all other similarities as well differences between the synoptic gospels and the fourth gospel is the life of Jesus, who died for our sins.
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