JOHN THE APOSTLE

                                                              Rev. Ed Sarnella

John the Apostle
The Divine, Apostle of Charity, Beloved Apostle Evangelist

John the Apostle: Please read along...:) (Aramaic Yoħanna, (Ancient Greek: Ἰωάννης) (c. 6 - c. 100) was one of the Twelve ApostlesJesus. He was the son of Zebedee and Salome, and brother of James, another of the Twelve Apostles. Christian tradition holds he was the last surviving of the Twelve Apostles and that he died of natural causes — the only apostle to die naturally - "in great old age near Ephesus".^[1] of
The Church Fathers generally identify him as the author of several New Testament works: the Gospel of John, the Epistles of John, and the Book of Revelation. All three are very different in nature from the synoptic gospels. It was said that the Bishops of Asia, requested him to write his Gospel to deal with dogma of the Ebionites, who asserted that Christ did not exist before Mary. It was also said that he composed his work because Matthew, Mark, and Luke, (of which he approved) had given the history of Jesus for only one year (the year which followed the imprisonment and death of John the Baptist).^[3] C 600, however, Saint Sophronius of Jerusalem, notes 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 on Patmos, it was “later translated by Justin Martyr and Irenaeus”, ^[1] presumably in an attempt to reconcile tradition with the obvious differences in Greek style.
Some modern scholars have raised the possibility that John the Apostle, John the Evangelist, and John of Patmos^[4] Certain lines of evidence suggest that John of Patmos wrote Revelation, but neither the Gospel of John nor the Epistles of John. For one, the author of Revelation identifies himself as "John" several times, but the author of the Gospel of John never identifies himself directly. Roman Catholic scholars state that "vocabulary, grammar, and style make it doubtful that the book could have been put into its present form by the same person(s) responsible for the fourth gospel."^[5] This is an area of ongoing scholarly debate. were three separate individuals.

The Gospel According to John (Greek τὸ κατὰ Ἰωάννην εὐαγγέλιον), commonly referred to as the Gospel of John or simply John,^[1] and often referred to in New Testament scholarship as the Fourth Gospel, is an account of the public ministry of Jesus. It begins with the witness and affirmation by John the Baptist and concludes with the death, burial, Resurrection, and post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus. This account is fourth of the canonical gospels, after the synoptics Matthew, Mark and Luke.
The Gospel's authorship is anonymous. Its Chapter 21 states it derives from the testimony of the 'disciple whom Jesus loved.' Along with Peter, the unnamed disciple is especially close to Jesus, and early-church tradition identified him as John the Apostle, one of Jesus' Twelve Apostles. The gospel is closely related in style and content to the three surviving Epistles of John such that commentators treat the four books together,^[2] yet, according to most modern scholars, John was not the author of any of these books.^[3]
Raymond E. Brown did pioneering work to trace the development of the tradition from which the gospel arose.^[4][5] c. AD 90. It is notable that, in the gospel, the community still appears to define itself primarily against Judaism, rather than as part of a wider Christian church.^[6] Though Christianity started as a movement within Judaism, gradually Christians and Jews became bitterly opposed.^[7] The discourses seem to be concerned with the actual issues of the church-and-synagogue debate at the time when the Gospel was written
John presents a "higher" Christology than the synoptics, meaning that he describes Jesus as the incarnation of the divine Logos through whom all things were made, as the object of veneration,^[8] and more explicitly as God incarnate.^[9] Only in John does Jesus talk at length about himself and his divine role, often shared with the disciples only. Against the synoptics, John focuses largely on different miracles (including resurrecting Lazarus), given as signs meant to engender faith. Synoptic elements such as parables and exorcisms are not found in John. It presents a realized eschatology in which salvation is already present for the believer. The historical reliability of John is debated, particularly by secular scholarship.^[10][11] In contrast, Grace-oriented churches argue for the total pre-eminence of John.

2 John 1:3

King James Version (KJV)

 ³Grace be with you, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.