For a great summary go to The Gospel of John in a Nutshell, February 19, 2025, by Dr. Bart Ehrman.
Extracts – Despite the broad similarities, this Gospel is very different from the others. Most of the stories about Jesus’ ministry – his encounters, his miracles, his confrontations with Jewish leaders – are different here; what he teaches is different; and when roughly the same stories are told, they are told very differently.
For starters: much of what we find in Matthew, Mark, and Luke is not in John. Here Jesus is not baptized by John the Baptist; there is no account of his temptations or transfiguration; he never casts out a demon; most of the Synoptic miracles are missing; he does not institute the Lord’s Supper; he does not preach about the coming kingdom of God; he never tells a parable; and he does not urge anyone to repent.
The point is that Jesus really is God, as shown by the greatest sign of all, the resurrection (John 20:27-28). Anyone who believes in him by learning about his signs will have eternal life (John 20:30-31). [not atonement or repentance]
Reinterpreting John – How the Dead Sea Scrolls have revolutionized our understanding of the Gospel of John by James H. Charlesworth in the BAS Library.
Extract – Today many scholars conclude that the Gospel of John may contain some of the oldest sections of the Gospels, and that it is conceivable that some of these oldest sections may be related in some way to an apostle, perhaps John himself.2 Moreover, the Gospel of John is now widely and wisely judged to be the most Jewish of the Gospels.
1 John 5:7-8 The Most Famous Forgery of All
As far as corrupted Bible scriptures go, 1 John 5:7-8 is infamous. It is a forgery that is so well known it has its own name: The Johannine Gloss or Johannine Comma (“Comma” meaning: short clause).
7 There are three that testify: 8 the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree. NRSV
From Wikipedia
The text (with the Comma in square brackets and italicised) in the King James Bible reads:
7For there are three that beare record [in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.] 8[And there are three that beare witnesse in earth], the Spirit, and the Water, and the Blood, and these three agree in one. — King James Version (1611)
From Wikipedia:
Authorship of the Johannine works
- The authorship of the Johannine works (the Gospel of John, the Johannine epistles, and the Book of Revelation) has been debated by biblical scholars since at least the 2nd century AD.[1]
- With respect to the date and location of authorship of these writings, there is general agreement that all four works probably originated from the same Johannine community.[10] That community is traditionally and plausibly either attributed to Ephesus or Damascus, circa AD 90-110.[11]
- Various objections to John the Apostle’s authorship have been raised:
- The Synoptic Gospels are united in identifying John as a fisherman from Galilee, and Acts 4:13 refers to John as “without learning” or “unlettered”.[35]
- The Fourth Gospel is written by someone who, based on their style and knowledge of the Greek language and grammar, would have to have been well-educated in Greek; on the other hand, as an uneducated illiterate Galilean fisherman, John the Apostle would most likely have had Aramaic as his native language, and no knowledge of any other language, let alone the ability to write in the sophisticated Greek of the Fourth Gospel.[35]: 32:41 [48]
- The Fourth Gospel emphasizes Judea, and the author seems to have had advanced knowledge of Judean topography, so likely came from there; on the other hand, John the Apostle came from Galilee.[48]
- The Fourth Gospel is a highly intellectual account of Jesus’ life and is familiar with Rabbinic traditions of biblical interpretation.
Hugo Mendez – From Q&A answers in Lesson 12 of the BSA course: The New Testament: Exploring the Christian Bible
Was John Written by an Eyewitness?
I’m one of probably the most skeptical scholars about John. I think that John is full of invention. I think that has an author who claims to be an eyewitness who wasn’t. And so, I tend to see the telltale marks of a text that is desperately trying to convince you that it was written by an eyewitness, even though it most certainly was not. And the proof is in the pudding.
If Jesus’ teachings were all about abiding in God and children of the light and everything that John makes it about, why don’t we find those emphases in Mark, in Matthew, and in Luke? Why don’t we see that echoed in other New Testament texts? The uniqueness of the Gospel of John and literature dependent on it, to me, strikes of an author who has gone his own way, who is actively creating and inventing speech.
Apocalyptic Eschatology or Realized Eschatology?
So, there is in John what you might call future eschatology or apocalyptic eschatology. When you read the synoptic gospels, they talk all the time about this coming kingdom of God and how the Son of Man is going to come on the clouds with power and glory; how there’s going to be these future tribulations, birth pangs, all this kind of stuff where there are wars and rumors of wars, nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom, people against people, that kind of thing.
John has virtually none of that. And even the stuff he has, I’ve argued in print—even kind of my most recent article—is kind of open to interpretation. What John has is what CH Dodd called a realized eschatology. That’s the idea that there isn’t a future judgment day. The judgment day is happening now. Jesus in chapter 12 literally says, now is the judgment.
John 12:27- 31 “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” 29 The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” 30 Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.
That’s a statement you do not find in the synoptics. So that’s what scholars understand that John seems to have started to reinterpret the end of the world as no longer a thing that’s quite future, or at least not as clearly as much future as something that’s already being realized now that when you decide to believe or not, you are already receiving eternal life, or you’re already receiving eternal judgment. You don’t wait for a future day; it’s happening now.
