Who was the disciple john in the bible?

Answer 1

One must look at the evidence and make up one's own mind.

And there is a great deal of evidence that John, son of Zebedee was, indeed the writer of the gospel.

First, the Church Fathers cannot be dismissed as an unreliable source of evidence. Irenaeus regarded John as the author of the gospel, as did his teacher Polycarp. Polycarp was, himself, a pupil of John, and any doubt over authorship would categorically have been verified or otherwise by those in the early church who were just a generation or two removed from John himself, and who had first-hand knowledge of John's ministry. We must remember that in the early Church there were many people around who were eyewitnesses to the events John describes, and who knew John. As examples of this, Charles Hill, in "The Johannine Corpus in the Early Church" states that the early bishops of Asia requested John write a gospel in response to Cerinthius, the Ebionites and other Hebrew groups which they considered heretical.

The gospel itself states that it was written by the 'disciple whom Jesus loved' and by someone who 'bore witness to these events'. Comparisons between events in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke), independently written from John (over 90% of John's account is unique to him) categorically and overwhelmingly suggest that this disciple whom Jesus loved is John himself. In the synoptic gospels, there are specific events where specific disciples are named. In John, the same events that are recorded state the same disciples, but in place of John, the author modestly refers to himself as 'the disciple whom Jesus loved', rather than anyone else, only identifying himself as an eyewitness disciple at the end of his account.

There have been suggestions about the gospel being 'gnostic' or written by someone who had no idea about Jewish Law, thus precluding John's authorship. However, unlike the gentile Luke who described Jewish customs and events for the Gentile ignorant of them, John does not feel it necessary to explain the many Jewish references - suggesting strongly that the gospel was written for the Jews. Also, the many Jewish references such as knowledge about ritual washing (cf the miracle changing water to wine) and the use of Hebrew prophetic scripture to back up John's claim of Christ's divinity (cf the use of scripture at the crucifixion) to name but two, strongly suggests that John's gospel was written by a person who had an intimate knowledge of Jewish law and custom.

Moreover, reading each episode and each 'I am' statement of Jesus shows a clear understanding of just who Jesus is. Compared with Luke's account, as an example, which is simply a narrative compiled (albeit thoroughly and well) by someone who had never met Jesus, John reads very differently. And, whoever wrote it, the writer displays an intimate knowledge of Jesus - far more than an external writer would ever have - and therefore must have been someone very close to Jesus. Even compared with the presumed writings of the other apostles (like Thomas, Peter, Matthew and so on) John's gospel comes across as an intimate study of Jesus and his divinity, not as a biographical account that could be written by anyone, but as an intimate study getting deep within the psyche of whom John regards as a God/man. This strongly suggests, then, that the gospel is likely to have been written by the closest disciple to Jesus - i.e. the 'disciple whom Jesus loved'. .

There is much more evidence that strongly suggests John as the author, but maybe these few examples of pointers towards John as author will be enough for the questioner to realise that the likelihood of John the disciple being the author of the gospel is overwhelming. According to The Bible, John was one of the twelve apostles. (Mark 3:16-19)

Answer 2

John was the brother of James, and believed to have been the disciple of all the twelve closest to Jesus Himself. It is held that all the others were martyred in the early days of the Church, but John alone lived into old age, in exile on Paphos.

Answer 3

Ian Wilson (Jesus: The Evidence) says that it can come as quite a shock to discover that no-one can even be sure who wrote the gospels. Despite the versions printed in our Bibles long having borne the names Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, these names are mere attributions, and even as such are rather less reliable than attributions given to unsigned works of art. The gospels were all written anonymously and only attributed to the disciples whose names they now bear later in the second century.

The origin of the tradition that the author of John was the disciple John is with the early Church Fathers, who saw that a 'disciple whom Jesus loved' was a key character in this Gospel. They decided that this disciple must be the author, who must have just been too modest to use his own name. They then noted that the apostle John was not mentioned any where in this Gospel, and decided that John was the missing disciple. Thus, on supposition and quite limited evidence, John became the author of the fourth gospel.

However, the author of the fourth gospel could not have been a disciple of Jesus.

Answer 4

John was the youngest disciple of jess, he wrote the four books of John and the book of Revelations.

Answer 5

The Apostle John was the only apostle to die naturally: all the others were martyred.

Answer 6

This John was from Capernaum making him a Galilean.

Answer 7

Was it sheepskin gown, and the baptisim.