John the Apostle (; ;Also ), also known as Saint John the Beloved and, in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Saint John the Theologian, was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus according to the New Testament. Generally listed as the youngest apostle, he was the son of Zebedee and Salome. His brother James was another of the Twelve Apostles. The Church Fathers identify him as John the Evangelist, John of Patmos, John the Elder, and the Beloved Disciple, and claim that he outlived the remaining apostles and was the only one to die of natural causes, although modern scholars are divided on the veracity of these claims.
John the Apostle is traditionally held to be the author of the Gospel of John, and many Christian denominations believe that he authored several other books of the New Testament (the three Johannine epistles and the Book of Revelation, together with the Gospel of John, are called the Johannine works), depending on whether he is distinguished from, or identified with, John the Evangelist, John the Elder, and John of Patmos.
The authorship of the Johannine works has traditionally been attributed to John the Apostle. While many modern scholars continue to affirm traditional authorship, most have concluded that he wrote none of them. Regardless of whether or not John the Apostle wrote any of the Johannine works, most scholars agree that all three epistles were written by the same author and that the epistles did not have the same author as the Book of Revelation, although there is widespread disagreement among scholars as to whether the author of the epistles was different from that of the gospel.
References to John in the New Testament
John the Apostle was born into a family of Jewish fishermen on the Sea of Galilee. He was a son of Zebedee and the younger brother of James (James the Great). According to church tradition, their mother was Salome.by comparing to And according to some traditions, Salome was the sister of Mary, Jesus' mother, making Salome Jesus' aunt, and her sons James and John the Apostle, cousins of Jesus.
John the Apostle is traditionally believed to be one of two disciples (the other being Andrew) recounted in , who upon hearing the Baptist point out Jesus as the "Lamb of God", followed Jesus and spent the day with him, thus becoming the first two disciples called by Jesus. On this basis some traditions believe that John was first a disciple of John the Baptist, even though he is not named in this episode.
According to the Synoptic Gospels (Matt 4:18–22; Mark 1:16–20; Luke 5:1–11), Zebedee and his sons fished in the Sea of Galilee. Jesus then called Peter, Andrew, and the two sons of Zebedee to follow him; showing that James and John were counted early among the Twelve Apostles. Jesus referred to the pair as "Boanerges" (translated "sons of thunder"). A Gospel story relates how the brothers wanted to call down heavenly fire on an unhospitable Samaritan town, but Jesus rebuked them. And John was the disciple who reported to Jesus that they had 'forbidden' a non-disciple from casting out demons in Jesus' name, prompting Jesus to state that 'he who is not against us is on our side'. NKJV
In AD 44, James became the first Apostle to die a martyr's death. John the Apostle is traditionally believed to have lived on for more than fifty years after the martyrdom of his brother James.
Position among the apostles
In the Gospels and in the Book of Acts, the Apostle John is always mentioned in the group of the first four apostles, listed either second, third or fourth.
John, his brother James, and Peter formed an informal triumvirate among the Twelve Apostles in the Gospels. Jesus appointed them to be the only apostles to accompany him at three particular occasions during his public ministry: the Raising of Jairus' daughter, the Transfiguration of Jesus, and the Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Jesus sent only Peter and John into the city to make the preparation for the final Passover meal (the Last Supper).While Luke states that this is the Passover () the Gospel of John specifically states that the Passover meal occurs on the following day ()
Many traditions identify the Apostle John as the "disciple whom Jesus loved" in the Gospel of John, but this identification is debated. At the meal itself, the "disciple whom Jesus loved" sat next to Jesus. It was customary to recline on couches at meals, and this disciple leaned on Jesus. Tradition identifies this disciple as John.
After the arrest of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, only Peter and the "other disciple" (according to tradition, John) followed him into the palace of the high-priest. The "beloved disciple", alone among the Apostles, remained near Jesus at the foot of the cross on Calvary alongside myrrhbearers and numerous other women. Following the instruction of Jesus from the Cross, the beloved disciple took Mary, the mother of Jesus, into his care as the last legacy of Jesus. Peter and John were also the only two apostles who ran to the empty tomb after Mary Magdalene bore witness to the resurrection of Jesus.
After Jesus' Ascension and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the Apostle John, together with Peter, took a prominent part in the founding and guidance of the church. He was with Peter at the healing of the lame man at Solomon's Porch in the Temple; and he was thrown into prison with Peter. Later, only Peter and John went to visit the newly converted believers in Samaria.
While John remained in Judea and the surrounding area, the other disciples returned to Jerusalem for the Apostolic Council (). Paul the Apostle, in opposing his enemies in Galatia, explicitly recalled that John, Peter and James the Just, were collectively recognized as the three Pillars of the Church. And Paul referred to the recognition that his Apostolic preaching of a gospel free from Jewish Law was received from these three, the most prominent men of the messianic community at Jerusalem.
The disciple whom Jesus loved
The phrase "the disciple whom Jesus loved"(, ), or in John 20:2: "whom Jesus loved" (, )is used six times in the Gospel of John, , 20:2, , , and in no other New Testament accounts of Jesus. And claims that the Gospel of John is based on the written testimony of this disciple.
The disciple whom Jesus loved is specifically referred to six times in the Gospel of John:
It is this disciple who, while reclining beside Jesus at the Last Supper, asks Jesus, after being requested by Peter to do so, who it is that will betray him. Later at the crucifixion, Jesus tells his mother, "Woman, here is your son", and to the Beloved Disciple he says, "Here is your mother." When Mary Magdalene discovers the empty tomb, she runs to tell the Beloved Disciple and Peter. The two men rush to the empty tomb and the Beloved Disciple is the first to reach the empty tomb. Peter, however, is the first to enter. In the last chapter of the Gospel of John, (John 21), the Beloved Disciple is one of seven fishermen involved in the miraculous catch of 153 fish.James D. G. Dunn and John William Rogerson, Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2003, p. 1210, . Also in the book's final chapter, after Jesus hints to Peter how Peter will die, Peter sees the Beloved Disciple following them and asks, "What about him?" Jesus answers, "If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!" Again in the Gospel's last chapter, it states that the very book itself is based on the written testimony of the disciple whom Jesus loved.
None of the other gospels includes anyone in the parallel scenes that could be directly understood as the Beloved Disciple. For example, in , Peter alone runs to the tomb. The gospels Mark, Matthew and Luke do not mention any one of the twelve disciples having witnessed the crucifixion.
There are also two references to an unnamed "other disciple" in and , which may be to the same person based on the wording in John 20:2.Brown, Raymond E. 1970. "The Gospel According to John (xiii–xxi)". New York: Doubleday & Co. Pages 922, 955
New Testament author
Church tradition has held that the Apostle John is the author of the Gospel of John and four other books of the New Testament, namely the three Epistles of John and the Book of Revelation, all which taken together are known as the Johannine literature. However, the authorship of some Johannine literature has been debated since about the year 200AD.Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History Book vi. Chapter xxv. Internal to the Gospel of John itself, authorship is credited, at , to the "disciple whom Jesus loved" (, o mathētēs on ēgapa o Iēsous)where claims the Gospel of John is based on the written testimony of the "Beloved Disciple".
In his 4th century Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius says that the First Epistle of John and the Gospel of John are widely agreed as of the Apostle John. However, Eusebius mentions that the second and third epistles of John were disputed, and that those rejecting these two epistles were not reading them in the churches. Eusebius also goes to some length to establish with the reader that there is no general consensus regarding the "revelation of John"and that the revelation of John could only be what is now called the Book of Revelation.The History of the Church by Eusibius. Book three, point 24.
The Gospel of John differs considerably from the Synoptic Gospels, which were likely written decades earlier. The bishops of Asia Minor supposedly requested him to write his gospel to deal with the heresy of the Ebionites, who asserted that Christ did not exist before Mary. John probably knew of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but these gospels spoke of Jesus primarily in the year following the imprisonment and death of John the Baptist.Thomas Patrick Halton, On illustrious men, Volume 100 of The Fathers of the Church, CUA Press, 1999. P. 19. However, around 600 AD, Sophronius of Jerusalem noted that "two epistles bearing his name ... are considered by some to be the work of a certain John the Elder";and, while stating that Revelation was written by John of Patmos, it was "later translated by Justin Martyr and Irenaeus"presumably in an attempt to reconcile tradition with the obvious differences in Greek style.