Was the Gospel of John written by John the Baptist

[NguyenKimPhat]

Was the Gospel of John written by John the Baptist?

 

[Cachonga]

There are a lot of other reasons to dismiss John the Baptist as the author of the Gospel of John, but I would think the fact that he was executed before Jesus was crucified would be sufficient evidence.

Hope this helps!

 

[Bob_Crowley]

Was the Gospel of John written by John the Baptist?

It’s a bit hard to write a Gospel when your heads sitting on a plate, separate from your body.

In reality we don’t know precisely who the authors were, but assume they were written by apostles or their followers, bearing the name of the Gospels.

The “The Lion Handbook to the Bible” had this to say …

"The author (who may, like Paul, have used a secretary) refers to himself simply as ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’ (21:20,24). He is one of the Twelve, and one of those closest to Jesus and also to Peter. These facts - and the fact that this Gospel makes no mention of the apostle John and describes the Baptist simply as ‘John’, make it likely that he is himself John, son of Zebedee, brother of James, and business partner of Peter and Andrew. The early church certainly thought so - and taught that the aged apostle wrote or dictated this ‘spiritual’ Gospel from Ephesus in present-day Turkey. John may have been Jesus’ cousin (his mother, Salome, being Mary’s sister: Matthew 27:56, Mark 15:40; John 19:25).

The Capernaum fishing business must have been a flourishing one, as the household had hired servants, and a house in Jerusalem. If the ‘other disciple’ of 8:15-16 is John it may have been through the business that John was acquainted with the high priest (John 18:15-16). He may also be the unnamed disciple of John the Baptist referred to in John 1:35, 40.

John and James (nicknamed by Jesus ‘sons of thunder’) with Peter were the leaders of the Twelve Disciples and later of the Jerusalem church. They were the inner circle of three who were allowed to see Jesus transfigured, who saw him restore Jairus’ daughter to life, and were near him in the Garden of Gethsemene. Jesus committed his own mother to John’s care as they stood near the cross. It was not given to many to know Jesus as closely as John did."

 

[Petergee]

The Holy See has declared that what we know as the Fourth Gospel of the Bible was written by St John, one of Christ’s Twelve Apostles, with the exception of the short concluding section which was apparently written by a close associate of St John shortly after his death.
See vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/pcb_doc_index.htm
(Document no. 4 - sorry it’s only in Italian or Latin.)

 

[Bob_Crowley]

These days a lot of priests don’t know Latin, so how do they study church documents like this one?

 

[Mike_Dye]

The consensus is that it was written by John the Divine, also believed to be the author of Revelation.

 

[NHInsider]

Was the Gospel of John written by John the Baptist?

No. John the Baptizer was Jesus’ cousin, son of Elizabeth and Zechariah the priest. The Evangelist was most probably John, Jesus’ “best friend,” one of two sons of Zebedee and Salome who were among the Apostles (the other being James).

 

[thomas_jd]

Although tradition identified this person as John, the son of Zebedee, most modern scholars find that the evidence does not support this.(NAB)

 

[NHInsider]

Although tradition identified this person as John, the son of Zebedee, most modern scholars find that the evidence does not support this.(NAB)

Creditting the text to the “Johannine community” just acknowledges that it wasn’t written down until later, not that it doesn’t go back to the Apostle as its source.

And either way it certainly wasn’t written by or acreditted to John the Baptist.