PRINCIPAL FIGURES IN THE BIBLE

Principal Figures in the Bible

Principal Figures in the Bible

Introduction

The Gospel of John is the fourth gospel in the usual sequence of the canon as printed in the New Testament, and most agree it was the fourth to be written. Like the other three gospels, it contains an account of the life of Jesus. The Gospel of John is the most divergent of the four. While the "beloved disciple," who is traditionally identified as John the Apostle, has traditionally been regarded as the author, this is now disputed (see also Authorship of John).

Principal Figures in the Bible

Almost all critical scholars place the writing of the final edition of John at some time late first or early second century. The text states only that the Fourth Gospel was authored by an anonymous follower of Jesus referred to as the Beloved Disciple. Traditionally he was identified as John the Apostle, who was believed as early as Papias to have lived at the end of his life at Ephesus.

The dating is important since John is agreed to be the last of the canonical Gospels to have been written and thus marks the end date of their composition.

Scholarly research since the 19th century has questioned the apostle John's authorship, however, and has presented internal evidence that the work was written many decades after the events it describes. The text provides strong evidence that it was written after the destruction of the Temple in 70 and after the break between Judaism and Christianity. F.C. Baur asserted a date as late as AD 160. Today, most critical scholars are of the opinion that John was composed in a number of stages (probably two or three) beginning at an unknown time (AD 50- 70?) and culminating in the final edition (our Gospel of John) around AD 95- 100. This final date is assumed in large part because the so-called " appendixcrucifixion. The text of the Gospel of John appears to reach a conclusion at the end of chapter 20, as the text summarizes the many signs that Jesus performed for his followers, not all of which could be recorded in the Gospel. As such, most critical scho" to the Gospel, chapter 21, is largely concerned with explaining the death of the "beloved disciple," probably the leader of the Johannine community that produced the gospel. If this leader had been a follower of Jesus, or a disciple of one of Jesus' folowers, then a death around 90-100 is expected.

Like the other Gospels, John was certainly based on previous works that are now lost. The contemporary scholar of the Johannine community, Raymond E. BrownFather Raymond E. Brown (died August 8, 1998), a member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission in 1972 and in 1996 and professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York, was one of America's preeminent biblical scholars. He was a member of the scholarly, in The Community of the Beloved Disciple (Paulist Press, 1979) identifies three layers of text in the ...