- Chapters
- 21
- Verses
- 0
- Where it sits
- The Gospels
What it is
Different from the other three in almost every way: no parables, no exorcisms, no Sermon on the Mount. Instead, long discourses, seven signs, and the great I am sayings — the bread of life, the light of the world, the good shepherd, the resurrection and the life.
Only John has Cana, Nicodemus, the woman at the well, the raising of Lazarus, the washing of the feet, the farewell discourse of chapters 14 to 17, and Thomas putting out his hand.
Where it came from
Irenaeus, around 180, says John the disciple of the Lord, the one who leaned on His breast, published a Gospel while living at Ephesus — and says he heard it from Polycarp, who had known the apostles. That is the tradition, and it is a specific, early claim.
The Gospel itself never names its author. It speaks of the disciple whom Jesus loved, and ends by saying that this is the disciple who bears witness and who wrote these things. The identification of that disciple with John the son of Zebedee is the Church’s, made early and held since; it is an identification, not a line in the text. Much modern scholarship speaks of a Johannine community or school, working over a generation from a core of eyewitness testimony. There is more on all of this, including the ancient objections, on the page for the Apostle John.
When the Church reads it
John is the Gospel of Pascha. It is read continuously from Pascha to Pentecost, which is why the Prologue — in the beginning was the Word — is the Gospel of Paschal night itself.
Before you start
- The chronology is not the others’. John puts the cleansing of the temple near the beginning of the ministry; the other three put it in the last week. Whether that means two cleansings, or a deliberate arrangement by John, is an old question the text does not settle.
- The Last Supper. In John the crucifixion falls on the day of preparation for Passover, so the supper is not narrated as the Passover meal — where the other three present it as exactly that.
- John 7:53–8:11, the woman taken in adultery, is missing from the earliest Greek manuscripts, and manuscripts that have it do not agree on where to put it. The Byzantine text, printed here, keeps it where you will find it.
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