The Gospel of John is the fourth of the New Testament's canonical Gospels. It contains a schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "signs" culminating in the raising of Lazarus and seven "I am" discourses culminating in Thomas's proclamation of the risen Jesus as "my Lord and my God". The penultimate chapter's concluding verse set out its purpose, "that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name."
John was written between AD 90–100. The gospel identifies an unnamed "disciple whom Jesus loved" as its source and perhaps author. Twentieth-century scholarship interpreted the gospel within the paradigm of a "Johannine community", but this has been increasingly challenged in the 21st century, and the gospel's historical context remains debated. Most scholars treat the gospel and the Johannine epistles, along with the Book of Revelation, as a single corpus of Johannine literature, albeit not by the same author.
John contains a prologue, an account of the ministry, and the passion and resurrection. John displays a literary unity throughout its text, and the current scholarly tendency is to approach the work as a coherent whole by a single author. The gospel displays a high Christology with some of the clearest identifications of Jesus with God in the New Testament writings. Jesus is identified as the Logos, paralleled in Greek philosophy and Targumic concepts of the divine Word. Although the John is distinct from the Synoptic Gospels, most scholars today accept the Synoptics as sources for John. John's relatively free usage of Mark aligns with the compositional practices of antiquity while contrasting with the unusually conservative adaptations found by the Synoptic authors.

== Authorship ==

= Composition =
The Gospel of John is traditionally attributed to John the Apostle. While many modern scholars continue to affirm the traditional attribution, most reject this hypothesis, though they view the beloved disciple as the source of much of John's content. The gospel is internally anonymous. John 21:22 references a disciple whom Jesus loved and John 21:24–25 says: "This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true". Most scholars believe the verses claim the beloved disciple was the author of the gospel, but others argue the author is claiming to be someone else recording the disciple's testimony. There is a consensus among Johannine scholars that the beloved disciple was a real historical person, but there is no consensus on who the beloved disciple was. John 1:14 also switches to a first-person narration, saying "And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth," revealing himself as a participant in the events narrated. The scholarly consensus dates the writing of the gospel between AD 90–100. Most critical commentaries agree the gospel was likely composed in Ephesus.
Recent scholarship has tended to turn against positing hypothetical sources for John. While a few scholars support old ideas about debated sources like the "signs source" and the "sayings source", or develop new theories, it is widely considered that John incorporated synoptic traditions into his own composition instead. For much of the twentieth century, the consensus was that John was independent of the Synoptics, but most scholars now accept the Synoptics as sources for John. The Hebrew scriptures were an important source, with 14 direct quotations (versus 27 in Mark, 54 in Matthew, 24 in Luke), and their influence is vastly increased when allusions and echoes are included, but the majority of John's direct quotations do not agree exactly with any known version of the Jewish scriptures. The author may claim to be a witness in John 21, 1:14, and 19:35. Most scholars agree the Gospels do not contain direct eyewitness accounts, though this may partly be the result of dubious assumptions based on form criticism. Tom Thatcher, writing for the Oxford Handbook of Johannine Studies, argues that while the beloved disciple did not write the current form of the gospel, this does not entail reconstructions that put the author multiple stages or generations away from the disciple. Instead, he argues that the Fourth Evangelist was a companion of the beloved disciple who was either wrote by the disciple's dictation or expanded his work. René Kieffer notes the possibility that there may have been a first and then a second edition.

= Setting: the Johannine community debate =
For much of the 20th century, scholars interpreted the Gospel of John within the paradigm of a hypothetical "Johannine community", meaning that it was held to have sprung from a late-1st-century Christian community excommunicated from the Jewish synagogue (probably meaning the Jewish community) on account of its belief in Jesus as the promised messiah. The gospel was considered to reflect a break between the Johannine Christians and the synagogue, while in the letters the Johannine community itself disintegrated. This interpretation, which saw the community as essentially sectarian and outside the mainstream of early Christianity, has been increasingly challenged in the first decades of the 21st century, and there is currently considerable debate over the gospel's social, religious and historical context.

== Structure and content ==

The Gospel of John contains a prologue (1:1–18); an account of the ministry, often called the "Book of Signs" (1:19–12:50); the account of Jesus's final night with his disciples and the passion and resurrection, sometimes called the Book of Glory or Book of Exaltation (13:1–20:31); a conclusion (20:30–31); and an epilogue widely believed to be added by either the author of chapters 1–20 or by somebody else (Chapter 21). Disagreement does exist; a growing number, such as Bauckham, and Mark Goodacre, argue that John 21 was part of the original work.. John displays a profound coherence and unity throughout, and the view of the gospel as a communal product of multiple editions is today in retreat, as literary critics approach the work as a unitary text.

The prologue informs readers of the true identity of Jesus, the Word of God through whom the world was created and who took on human form; he came to the Jews and the Jews rejected him, but "to all who received him (the circle of Christian believers), who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God."
Book of Signs (ministry of Jesus): Jesus calls his disciples and begins his earthly ministry. He travels from place to place informing his hearers about God the Father in long discourses, offering eternal life to all who will believe, and performing miracles that prove the authenticity of his teachings, which creates tensions with the religious authorities (manifested as early as 5:17–18), who decide he must be eliminated.
The Book of Glory tells of Jesus's return to his heavenly father: it tells how he prepares his disciples for their lives without his physical presence and his prayer for himself and for them, followed by his betrayal, arrest, trial, crucifixion and post-resurrection appearances.
The conclusion sets out the purpose of the gospel, which is "that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name."
Chapter 21 tells of Jesus's post-resurrection appearances in Galilee, the miraculous catch of fish, the prophecy of the crucifixion of Peter, and the fate of the Beloved Disciple.
The structure is highly schematic: there are seven "signs" culminating in the raising of Lazarus (foreshadowing the resurrection of Jesus) and seven "I am" sayings and discourses, culminating in Thomas's proclamation of the risen Jesus as "my Lord and my God" (the same title, dominus et deus, claimed by the Emperor Domitian, is an indication of the date of composition).

== Theology ==

= Christology =

The Gospel of John contains the clearest identifications of Jesus with God in the New Testament; while Jesus is subordinated to God at times, the author also indicates Jesus and God are somehow one. Joseph Ratzinger highlights the link of the Gospel with the Old Testament, while according to James Dunn, this Christology does not describe a subordinationist relation but rather the authority and validity of the Son's "revelation" of the Father, the continuity between the Father and the Son. Dunn sees this as intended to serve the Logos Christology, while others (e.g., Andrew Loke) see it as connected to John's incarnation theme. James Barker argues that important aspects of Trinitarianism are present in the New Testament and that an economic Trinity "stood ready-made in the Gospel of John." Larry Hurtado argues that while the developed doctrine of the Trinity is not explicit in the books that constitute the New Testament, they possess a triadic understanding of God and contain a number of Trinitarian formulas. John's "high Christology" depicts Jesus as divine and preexistent and talks openly about his divine role and echoing Yahweh's "I Am that I Am" with seven "I Am" declarations of his own. At the same time there is a stress like that in Luke on the physical continuity of Jesus's resurrected body, as Jesus tells Thomas: "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."

= Logos =

In the prologue, the gospel identifies Jesus as the Logos or Word. In Ancient Greek philosophy, the term logos meant the principle of cosmic reason. In this sense, it was similar to the Hebrew concept of Wisdom, God's companion and intimate helper in creation. The Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo merged these two themes when he described the Logos as God's creator of and mediator with the material world. According to Stephen Harris, the gospel adapted Philo's description of the Logos, applying it to Jesus, the incarnation of the Logos.
Another possibility is that the title logos is based on the concept of the divine Word found in the Targums (Aramaic translation/interpretations recited in the synagogue after the reading of the Hebrew Scriptures). In the Targums (which all postdate the first century but which give evidence of preserving early material), the concept of the divine Word was used in a manner similar to Philo, namely, for God's interaction with the world (starting from creation) and especially with his people. Israel, for example, was saved from Egypt by action of "the Word of the LORD", and both Philo and the Targums envision the Word as manifested between the cherubim and the Holy of Holies.

= Cross =
The portrayal of Jesus's death in John is unique among the gospels. It does not appear to rely on the kinds of atonement theology indicative of vicarious sacrifice but rather presents Jesus's death as his glorification and return to the Father. Likewise, the Synoptic Gospels' three "passion predictions" are replaced by three instances of Jesus explaining how he will be exalted or "lifted up". The verb for "lifted up" (Ancient Greek: ὑψωθῆναι, hypsōthēnai) reflects the double entendre at work in John's theology of the cross, for Jesus is both physically elevated from the earth at the crucifixion but also, at the same time, exalted and glorified.
John's Gospel intimately links the crucifixion with themes of new birth and eternal life. Jesus' statement in John 3:14-15 likens his being "lifted up" to the bronze serpent in the wilderness, indicating that belief in the crucified Christ confers eternal life. Hence, the cross inaugurates a new covenantal reality and the possibility of spiritual rebirth. This emphasizes the life-giving rather than punitive aspects of Jesus' death.

= Sacraments =

Scholars disagree on whether and how frequently John refers to sacraments, but current scholarly opinion is that there are very few such possible references, and that if they exist they are limited to baptism and the Eucharist. In fact, there is no institution of the Eucharist in John's account of the Last Supper (it is replaced by Jesus washing the feet of his disciples), and no New Testament text that unambiguously links baptism with rebirth.

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Source: Gospel of John
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